Engineering Prints

DIY ART with Staples Engineering Prints

I'm not the best at writing step by step instructions, but I'll give it a go!!!

{I love how these turned out with the orange edges, but if you want the easy steps, scroll to end before reading all of this!}

A few months back Brady n I tackled an art project for the Nursery. I've been wanting to try out the Engineering Prints that you see all over Pinterest. It's totally worth the small expense and time to get such big art in return. Although, it does take patience. I would have blown up and/or given up if it weren't for Brady helping out. But like I said, it's worth it to get the giant art for cheap. I took two pictures from my IPHONE and used photo shop to up the contrast so they would feel less like cheap pix n more like art. Then I uploaded them to Staples.com. You have to go under their printing dept and into their Engineering prints. It took about 10 minutes total to place my order. I chose the largest size available @ around $7 each. And later that night I got an email that my prints were ready. I was expecting really poor quality, but the lady at Staples said these turned out better than most...

We bought 1 inch insulation board from Pro Build at about $18.  (they sell thicker options but it might be hard to cut)  You also will need a Sheetrock knife and an entire pack of extra blades. 

First we cut the excess off the photos and measured them.  Then we marked the insulation board with a straight edge at roughly 1/2 inch less than the pic on all sides.  Brady used his Sheetrock knife to cut the insulation board.  It's not the easiest thing to cut this stuff, so be patient!  And don't expect it look perfect.  This project is not perfect, so don't be too picky! 

Next I painted the edges of the pink insulation orange with acrylic paint.  We then used Elmer's Spray Adhesive from Michael's to place the picture on the insulation board.  This takes about 4 hands..  Use a credit card to take out any kinks.  We found that the adhesive had a little give in it so you could take up the picture in areas if you needed.

Then Brady used his Sheetrock knife to cut any excess of the paper that overlapped the insulation board.  This was the hardest step because we wanted it to be exactly the same size as the insulation board.  I was not good at this step because my patience was no where to be found.  You will need to replace the blades often to get a clean cut.

You can see from the picture above that the edges are far from perfect.  Since the insulation board does not lay flat we decided to use toggled screws with a built in washer.  You can use a regular toggle, screw and washer..  If you don't use the washer, you might end up screwing right through the picture and then being really pissed off for the rest of the day..

This is a pretty fragile project so we are actually thinking of having plexi glass cut to fit over the prints.  It would be perfectly fine in any adult space, but we can just see our kiddo smearing his dirty hands all over it..  I'll let you know when we get that figured out!

If you want to cut out a lot of stress: Just cut the insulation board about 2 inches smaller than the print and wrap the print around the board like canvas art. HELLO!! Why did I not think of that before!!