A personalised Christmas gift: canvas photo picture

Handmade, homemade and personalised Christmas presents are brilliant. Whether it’s a salt dough decoration made by your toddler, some shortbread given by a friend, or a collage of photos made for a cherished family member you know that time and effort – and love – has been put into the creation of the gift. And what’s more, you end up with something really unique.

 

I’ve featured a few handcrafted gifts on this blog including a framed picture I made for the Christening of a friend’s baby, a Scrabble picture spelling out the names of my boyfriend’s brother and his wife and children, and these homemade bath fizzers.

 

Sometimes you don’t have time – or the necessary skills – to produce something handmade, and this is where specialist companies come into their own. The Creative Canvas Company contacted me a few months ago to ask if I would like to review a canvas picture that you put together yourself from uploading a photo to the site to building the canvas frame. I thought this would be the perfect housewarming gift for my boyfriend as we have just bought our first house together – moving and unpacking is the reason for the delay in posting this review!

 

The website was very easy to use – I went to the ‘photo canvas prints’ section and clicked on ‘get started’. You choose the style – you can have one large picture, or one large and two small, or a selection of smaller pictures like a collage on the same canvas. Then choose your size – you can see clearly the price you will pay for each type of picture and size so if you have a budget it’s easy to stick to it.

 

Uploading the photo and checking I was happy with how it was cropped and centred couldn’t be easier, and then it was just a case of paying and waiting for the picture to arrive.

 

It comes in a long thin box as you have to put the picture together yourself. I have to admit I was quite dubious about this - I bought two canvas photo pictures a few years ago that came ready made, but admittedly did cost more. As we unrolled the canvas and laid out the four posts I had a sinking feeling that this might not work, but I needn't have worried.

 All you do is lay the four pieces of the frame out in the corners of your picture (with the photo facing downwards of course), then unpeel the sticky tape, cut a slit in each corner and fold the edges of the picture over the edges of the frame, then fold the four pieces of the frame inwards to make a sturdy box frame. Don't worry if that doesn't quite make sense - it comes with easy-to-follow instructions.

It also comes with a hook so it was really very easy to put together and hang on the wall. I gave this to my boyfriend as our housewarming present as we have just bought our first (and hopefully only!) house together. The photo is one I took of his car outside Leeds Castle on a Supercar day that was a wonderful day out and a lovely memory - and it looks pretty good!

It looks great on the wall of the 'man cave' above a scale model of his car that he had wanted for years which I finally managed to track down last Christmas!

I think something like this would make a great Christmas gift and you can of course use any kind of photo- you could even choose the collage style and make a framed picture for your wall of all your favourite things you have baked!

Thanks to the Creative Canvas Company for inviting me to try out their service and sending me the photo canvas free of charge.