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1.29.2014

DIY Photo Mural Wall (For Less Than $50)


My office/craft room has a lot of “design traps.”  It’s small & I have A LOT of stuff, it’s poorly lit with no natural light and it has plain white walls.  Don’t get me wrong, I feel so fortunate to have my own personal office.  The problem is that it can sometimes feel like a cage instead of a happy, creative space, so I find myself doing my work in any room OTHER than my office.  I mean, I’ve lived in my home for over a year and I JUST got rid of the last few packed boxes in my office (Hi, I'm really good at avoiding things!).  In an effort to get more use out of this room, I’ve made it a goal to figure out how to work with the elements that I’ve been given and make it an awesome place of positive, creative energy.

I’ve been seeing a lot of these giant photo walls using engineer prints all over Pinterest and have been dying to do one.  I just didn’t know where I wanted to do it … and then it became incredibly obvious.  



I’ve had this big blank wall staring me down in my office for quite some time now and felt it was time to give it a much needed makeover.

I chose a picture I took back in 2012 on my 35mm film camera.  


I love this photo because of the detail, but also because it is one of the first pictures I ever took with my Nikon and it has a lot of sentimental value to me.  I was going to keep it plain, but then I decided that a quote or statement might give it even more punch.   I’ve been crushing on these prints for a while now and figured it was the perfect addition to the print.  

This is a super easy, cheap and temporary way (hello renters) to spruce up a wall in your home (or bedroom/dorm room).  The whole thing took me 30 minutes to put up and cost about $40.  Best part is when you get tired of it, you can rip it down anytime and swap it for another print.  Let’s get to it!

Supplies


Directions

1.  Measure the wall that you are using.

2.  Choose your photo (make sure it is a high quality image since it is going to be blown up pretty large).

3.  Open your photo in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.  Blow up to the measurements of your wall and make sure the quality is 300 pixels per inch or higher.  My wall measured 88x88 inches so that is the size I made the image.



4.  Crop your photo into pieces the size of the engineer prints provided at your print shop.  I did this by making a custom crop size of 36X48 inches.   (Tip: Add the “Rulers” view in Photoshop to help guide you).


5.  Continue cropping sections of 36X48, continuing from the last point you cropped from.



6.  Save each cropped photo as a separate file in PDF format and get them printed at Staples (or wherever you find a printing place that does engineer prints).



7.  Once you have your engineer prints, lay them on the ground in the order they will be put on the wall.  Some pieces will have a white frame you will need to trim with scissors.  I kept some of the white trim on certain pieces because they worked well for overlapping with the next print.  By laying them all out you will be able to see which white trims will be useful for overlapping and which trims need to be removed.  

8.  Using the double sided poster tape, put up each print, lining them up so they overlap in the correct spots.  I found that it was easiest to start at the top right (or left) corner and work my way across and then I did the bottom panels after.  Be sure to use enough tape so that they are secure and aren’t bubbling out from the wall.  



9.  Trim any excess pieces.  And you’re done!





I still want to get a low shelf to place against this wall, which is why I put the "SCREW PERFECTION" logo higher up.

I can't tell you how easy this was and how much it has transformed the room AND my energy in it.  Happy DIY-ing!


2 comments :

  1. cool idea. I would've liked to see it in better quality paper and higher quality print. nice nonetheless..

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can use Rasterbator. Its a program that allow you to do the same of the tutorial without ps.
    Try it. http://rasterbator.net/

    ReplyDelete