I could easily spend $100s on decorating my house.
My Pinterest boards are overflowing with gallery walls featuring gorgeous typography prints and photos, and from a cursory glance at some of the Etsy shops behind them, it would be no problem for me to drop over $100 solely on prints to put up on my walls.
The dream.
But here’s the thing.
I’ve been reading so many great posts about being self-sufficient, that I started to wonder. Maybe I could actually make my own prints and save some money, while still getting fancy art to hang on my walls?
Now, a short disclaimer: I’m no designer. I like to think I’m crafty enough, and I know what I like, but my ability to actually create it has rarely been put to the test. This entire experiment, should you choose to replicate it, is pretty beginner friendly.
Here are the six somewhat-replicable steps I took to finally take a stab at making my own “art.”
Step 1. Convince yourself you can totally do this.
Look at a lot of Etsy stores and Pinterest boards. Like, a lot of them. Acknowledge how much you like simple prints with inspiring quotations, and convince yourself they’d be easy to make yourself.
Spend about 45 more minutes on this than you need to, because you fell into a Pinterest hole and you can’t get back out just yet.
Step 2. Fall in love with a font.
You so don’t have to be a designer to know what you like. My favourite place to look for fonts is Creative Market, which is where I got the Bonjour font a while ago, with the express intention of using it to make fun prints to display at home.
That said, it took me literally months to actually get off my butt and do it. One of the big pushes I needed was…
Step 3. Fall in love with a quotation.
Someone tweeted this quotation from Roald Dahl a few weeks back, and it hit me so hard. I couldn’t believe I had never heard it before, because it so clearly sums up one of my core beliefs about life.
“I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.”
This is exactly how I live my life – I jump in with both feet, and I am entirely unashamed of how enthusiastic I can be about things, personal finance very much included. If you need any more proof of how quickly I can go from 0 to unbelievably stoked about something, just check out how long it took me to decide that cutting my own hair was the best thing I could do on a Monday night.
Long story short, when a quotation hits you that hard, it’s easy to get excited about making a print of it to put on your wall.
Step 4. Play around with Photoshop until you like what you see.
Now that I had the font and the quotation I wanted, I took to Photoshop. Again, I want to reinforce that I am not a designer by trade or training, but I’ve been exposed to Photoshop enough that I can do the basics – in this case, add in text and format it.
First things first though – set yourself up to win by choosing a document size in inches. I chose 8” by 10”, because I know I can find reasonably priced frames to fit that dimension.
This is Photoshop, and it is so not as intimidating as it looks.
I’m also lucky enough that my team at work has a license for Adobe’s Creative Suite, so the monthly licensing fee is covered. If you want to try your hand at it, you can get a free 30-day trial. Alternatively, you can also use a free image editing software – I’ve heard good things about Gimp!
Either way, this step is really friendly to non-designers, because it’s much more editing-friendly than trying to hand-draw the same thing. Once you have your text in the image, you can move it around and transform it as much as you want until you’re happy with the end result.
Step 5. Export it as a print-ready PDF.
This one was a pro tip I learned from close proximity to designers in my day job. If you’re going to send a digital file to get printed, you should save it in a print-friendly file type. Luckily, if you’re using Photoshop, this is pretty easy. Just go File > Save As and choose “Photoshop PDF” as your file type.
Step 6. Send it to a local print shop.
Lastly, because I wanted to pretend this was a fancy-pants art print, not a somewhat-wine-fuelled adventure in frugality, I sent the file to a local print shop down the street instead of printing it on regular paper at the office.
If my boss is reading this, of course I would never use the work printer for personal items.
Obviously.
Back to the local print shop though! We’ve had photos printed there, and when I called them up to ask about printing this file on cardstock, they were fantastic.
I ended up getting 10 prints made, for a total cost of $11.30. That works out to a cool $1.13 for the print I’m going to keep, and I threw the other 9 up on Etsy as a bit of an experiment. (I’ve also got the digital file up there, in case anyone wants to download it and print it themselves!)
Voila! Instead of spending $10-$20 on a single print to decorate the walls of my house or my cubicle, a little time working in Photoshop got me a print for $1.13, hours of fun setting up an Etsy store and in the very worst case, 9 prints that I can pawn off on friends as gifts in the future.
And I have to say, they turned out exactly the way I wanted, which is a huge perk of DIY art.
Unabashed enthusiast over here. Not at all ashamed of how excited I am these turned out well!
Would you ever make your own prints or art? Have you had success DIY-ing your decorations? I don’t want to end up with a wall of text (although I do love words, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world) so I’d love to hear what other DIY art ideas you’ve seen or done yourself!
This is a great idea, and I’m hoping to spruce up my home this way. I don’t have photoshop though, do you know if there are any other programs that would work?
Definitely! If you want to avoid Photoshop completely, GIMP is an alternative, and I found this article about a bunch of different options I had never even heard of: http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/applications/best-free-photo-editing-software-10-top-image-editors-you-should-try-1135489
Hopefully one of those will be the solution you’re looking for – keep me posted on how it goes, I’d love to see the results!
Thank you so much! This is incredibly helpful!
Love this idea! I have also dabbled in word art, but — like you — don’t want to feel like we’re living in a house covered with words. So that has limited how far I’ve taken it. For those without Photoshop, Canva is a pretty good free online tool! Keep us posted on how the prints do on Etsy! So curious to know.
I cannot even believe I forgot Canva, thank you for adding it! Such a great one, and so so so easy to use.
I’ve never DIY’d my own art, but Mr. MyCountdown is quite the amateur photographer, so we have several of his prints hanging around our home (and he’s given them as gifts). Your project seems like it’s pretty fun to do. Good luck with your online store endeavors!
Thank you! Photography is one thing I sometimes try to brute force, and I have a decent camera, but I’ve never ended up with photos I really like – that is a wonderful DIY skill to have! Especially since that does make a wonderful gift. I also have this dream that someday I’ll take great at-home awkward Christmas photos with my boyfriend and dog, bad Christmas sweaters and all. Someday!
Not for ages, but as a young woman I did. I would cut out clippings from magazines, usually from adverts or fashion shoots, put them on black backgrounds and then frame them. I remember one picture of rain falling on asphalt, all monochrome, which grabbed attention from whoever visited my house, and it was simply pulled out of a mag…
Oh that is such a great idea! I’ve been looking for a project to do with a bunch of my old magazines and you’re totally right – a lot of people who work in advertising were paid a lot of money to make sure the images that went into magazines looked great! I’m totally going to steal this one, thank you!
I love this idea! And I love the font you used, as well as the ink blot effect! I did the fabric-in-between-embroidery-hoops before (something like this: http://in1.ccio.co/74/B7/MF/45880489923361439nIfciwITc.jpg) and they looked nice. It didn’t require much skills but it takes a while to choose and settle with a colour scheme or pattern. I don’t think I spent much in that project too since I bought the materials from a discount shop. 🙂
Oh that looks so cool! I’m glad you included the image too, because when I think of those hoops I always think of stuff like cross-stitch, but that looks wonderful with the fabric patterns. Plus, way less chance of stabbing yourself! I’m not what one would call “coordinated”, haha.
Wow! I’m super impressed by your print. I need to focus my effort on number 1. Sometimes (ok, most of the time) I think I am not a creative, visual person. I think I need a little confidence and a bit of practice. Great tips!
Oh my gosh, the BEST book for that is Creative Confidence, by Tom Kelley and David Kelley. One of them (I forget which one, I’m awful) is the founder of IDEO and the design school at Stanford, and it’s all about reminding people that everyone can be creative! I absolutely loved it and it’s well worth a library trip if you can find it locally. My favourite example that I remember to this day is about a team of designers who transformed an MRI machine at a kids hospital into a spaceship using decals and decorating the whole room, to create a less terrifying experience for the kids. Super creative, in an area where people generally don’t expect art and creativity to have a big impact.
And thank you so much Claudia!
Um, your print is fabulous. I’ve been bugging the husband to dabble in Etsy prints since he is good at graphic design. Little did I know that the everyday-Photoshop-dabbler can create awesome stuff too! You’ve inspired me to try myself! I’d be interested to know how your nine prints do on Etsy, too.
Thank you so much Pira! And you can totally create great stuff – it took me a while to convince myself, but I’m really happy it worked out! I work closely with designers, and I get super intimidated by how great they are, but I had to remind myself that as long as I like it, it’s all good. I’ll keep you posted on how the Etsy thing goes if you keep me posted on how it goes when you try out making a typography print 🙂
Done and done! Now I just need to figure out how to get my Photoshop CD installed on my Macbook Air with no disc drive….#fail
Oh man, that is so over my technical-skills-head – I hope it works out for you! (This is how well I know my computer: I just double checked both sides to see if it had a disk drive. It doesn’t, lol.)
Lovely work! This print would totally pass muster in the few design classes I took in college. I see an Etsy shop in your future 😉 The closest I’ve come to DIY art is to edit, print, and hang some photos that I’ve taken. This is awesome work!
Seriously, though, I formally request an update on the Etsy shop down the road 🙂
Hey Des, thanks for the link!
I’m not particularly arty myself, but this post is certainly inspiration to do something like you’re describing. I’d actually been thinking I need something new for the wall in my office…
You should totally go for it! With digital stuff like this, the best part is that if you don’t love it on the screen, you’re not out any money – provided you don’t go ahead and print something you don’t love, but I mean, that’s pretty avoidable! And thank you for the inspiration to tackle more things myself, your post really was the kick in the butt I needed.
I have to admit that I barely even understand what Pinterest is. But it sounds like I should take some time to check it out! This is super cool.
My favorite inspirational quote that I’ve seen this week is: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.” – George Eliot
Oh that’s just wonderful – *especially* given the financial stuff we spend so much time talking about! It seriously is never too late to take control of that stuff (or “be what you might have been”! But even as I type it I feel like someone’s corny grandma. I’m definitely not cool enough to actually say it, haha.)
Just found your site and love it! Question about the print, sorry for my ignorance in advance, where can you find fonts that you can use (and sell) for free? Did you have to pay to use it commercially?
No need to be sorry at all! I buy my fonts from Creative Market, and their Simple License is really easy to understand and clear – you can use the fonts in commercial projects, as long as they aren’t a “value add.” IE. I can use them in prints, but I can’t bundle a print with the actual font file (aka resell the font.)
Here’s the link to the license – they have some great fonts covered by it! Awesome, awesome question 🙂