Does you home need a lift? Paint and wall paper borders are an inexpensive way to create a new look and add architectural detail to any room without intruding on your current overall design theme. Borders are easy to install, relatively inexpensive and can be placed in stairways, kitchens, dinning rooms, living rooms, family rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms and around windows and doors.

Look in your local hardware or home improvement store for exciting paint colors that may have been returned or not mixed to a customer’s preference and discontinued or sale on wall paper borders. What a money saver!

You can use the paint for a one wall or wainscot accent. Place the border as a wainscot divider, around a door or window, create a series of gallery panels on a wall, use on the risers of the stairway, frame around a group of your favorite collectibles or a skylight, create your own headboard and use as a crown or base molding … to suggest a few.

Borders can be mitered for perfect corners or cut out different patterns that appear on the border and use them independently. Try it you will love it!

Want a quick room change or pick me up. Tired of your artwork but love the frames. Measure the picture size, purchase new prints or get creative and insert your own. If your decor lends well to abstract or modern art have your children paint sections of color on a canvas for a special unique and GREAT look. Voila!! A new appearance and feel to your room. Remember frames can be refreshed, renewed or completely changed with a small amount of paint.

Write for more detailed information. And remember, I always love to hear about your creative ideas.

By: Diane Cooper

The popularity of your photo to canvas prints has grown considerably over the last couple of years and with is so have the number of companies selling your photo to canvas products. So how do you choose which company to use? Is price the main factor or should you be looking for the details?

Types of Canvas

The weight and type of canvas is important, a company that uses a top of the range canvas will state which make of canvas they use, otherwise it could be a cheap import. Too many companies say they use 100% cotton canvas as it is better than a poly cotton blend well in some cases this is true but a high-quality poly cotton blend is better than a cheap 100% cotton canvas, the same as a high quality 100% cotton canvas is better than a cheap poly cotton canvas. A 100% cotton canvas has a more authentic canvas look which is given by the less uniformed rougher weave, which in my opinion is better for artwork and painting reproductions. A poly cotton blend has a more uniformed look to it so suits photographs more than a 100% cotton canvas. The canvas also needs to have a good weight, I wouldn’t recommend anything below 350gsm as a heavier canvas can be stretched tighter and so will not sag with time, some canvases can be as thin as paper from your printer at home so beware.

Inks

The basic rule is that if the inks used are not pigment inks you should not be buying it. The most popular printers used by canvas printers are the Epson printers and use genuine Epson Ultrachrome inks which are all pigment inks and in my opinion the best around.

Wood frame or stretcher bars?

The main thing to look for regarding the frame is the type of wood used. As wood is a porous material it is susceptible to water in the atmosphere, and can warp over time due to expanding and shrinking with water absorption. The wood needs to be kiln dried as it will not warp over time. The main advantage for using stretcher bars is that they have a shaped edge at the front so that the canvas is not resting on the frame at the front, normal square frames have the canvas resting on them and over time you may find you can see where the frame edge ends.

Is it laminated?

If it is a quality print then it will keep it’s colour for years even in direct sunlight so it does not need laminating for this reason, although lamination will increase it’s life. The main reason a print needs laminating is to protect it from scratches and chips, and also to ensure it can be cleaned with a damp cloth. Laminating will double the life of your canvas ensuring that it can be moved around without risk of cracking or chipping.

I hope this has helped you to know what to look for when buying a your photo to canvas print.

By: JS Fox

Giclee pronounced ‘Zhee clay’ comes from the French word gicler, which means to spurt. It is an invented name by printmaker James Duganne in the 1990’s. Giclee is an art process by making fine art prints from an inkjet printer. Jack Duganne worked with Iris Proof Printers the first ink jet printers to produce fine art prints. The Iris printers are large format printers and were used for proofing and colour matching. They produced excellent colour accuracy and could print on arrange of mediums like canvas, varieties of papers, silk and linen and also had low ink costs. Once printed, the article was normal discarded and then mass printing would occur after checking the article produced by the Iris Printer was fit to do so. Fine art prints printed from these printers normally degrade and have non-longevity because the printers were made for proofing only and they also use dye inks. The company that manufactured the Iris printers tried to reinvent themselves and make printers that produced fine art prints that were durable but they failed has competition grew vast. The competition includes Colorspan, Epson, Canon, HP, Mimaki and Roland DGA.

Iris proofs as what artists called them for obvious reasons where not called giclee prints and some artists wanted to distinguish them from that. Giclee prints lasts for many years. Nash came up with another name called digigraph to distinguish them from industrial printing which was Iris printing. At present giclee now stands from prints printed by fade – resistant archival inks including solvent inks.

Ink jet printers use a CMYK process but have multiple cartridges for variations of each colour based on CcMmYK (cyan, light cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow and key which is black). This increases resolution and colour gamut. The printers can use a variety of substrates and even produce fabulous prints on thick paper, card and board with beautiful fine art finishes. Epson printing technology has now increased the CcMmYK process by adding a light black and a light light black and also matte black for matte papers and fine art papers including canvas. This is to deplete bronzing and to create stunning black and white giclee prints. There have been other developments now like printing on wallpaper. Fabric manufacturers have developed wallpaper fabric that you can now print on. Now artists just don’t have to stick to a normal sized canvas they now can have an entire wall. They can print murals or photographs.

For artist giclee printing is economical, affordable and they don’t need to produce larger runs of four colour offset prints. They can print on necessity and manipulate image files using software such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel, Ulead and ArcSoft Photo studio which can improve colour, size, resolution and tone. The disadvantages of giclee printing are that it can take a long time to print a print and sometimes can be expensive depending on what you’re printing and how big. For customers buying giclee art prints it can be beneficial with price depending if it’s a limited edition, original or the print has been mass printed. They can buy a print that matches their décor and of any size and on any substrate. They can even get the company their buying it from to change the colours of a print if they wish especially if it’s a bespoke giclee printing company. The most important customer factor is it last a very long time up to 75 years and this depends on substrates used and model of the printer, epson printers are very good for this.

By: Precious Mckissick