Back in the fall for my One Room Challenge beachy glam master bedroom project, I tackled building my own DIY large canvas for the first time. It was SO easy, I’ll definitely do it again.

I knew I wanted a large statement piece of art for the wall to the left of my bed, but I didn’t have a big budget, so I knew I’d have to DIY something. I looked into purchasing a premade canvas to paint, but found that the cheapest large one I could find was $100 at Michael’s. There were no coupons available, and like all things at Michael’s I knew it would eventually go on 40-50% sale, but I was on a time crunch and couldn’t wait.

I remembered that I had seen a shower curtain turned into art on the House of Jade Interiors blog, and I figured I could do something similar to build my own canvas to serve as a back drop for my DIY art. The greatest thing is that I was able to choose custom dimensions, since I built it myself.

My dimensions are 3.5 feet tall by 5 feet wide, but you can choose whatever size you want. You’ll just need to adjust the dimensions of your 1 inch x 2 inch x 8 feet boards accordingly.

If you want to attempt something similar, here’s what you’ll need.

• Two, three, or four 1″ x 2″ x 8′ pine board, depending on canvas size – I needed three and bought mine at Home Depot
• #8 1 1/2 inch wood screws, also purchased from Home Depot
• Drill with phillips head drill bit, as well as a drill bit for pilot holes (1/8 or 3/32)
• staple gun and staples
• canvas fabric (or shower curtain, or patterned fabric; whatever you plan to wrap around your frame – the possibilities are endless!) – I purchased mine from Joann Fabric using a 40% off coupon

1) Cut your pine boards down to size. In my case, I had a Home Depot employee cut one down to make two 1″ x 2″ x 3.5′ boards (for my vertical pieces) and two others cut down to 1″ x 2″ x 5′ each (for my horizontal pieces). One of my 3.5 feet boards was about an eighth of an inch longer than the other, and I was concerned this would give the art a crooked feel, but you can’t tell once it’s done!

2) Lay your boards out narrow (one inch) side down, as you want them assembled. I placed my horizontal pieces inside my vertical pieces, bringing the actual size of my canvas to 5’2″ x 3.5′.

3) Drill a pilot hole for your wood screw. The recommended bit size for #8 screws is 1/8 for hard woods and 3/32 for soft woods. Pine is a soft wood, but I still used a 1/8 bit and it worked just fine.

4) Use a drill to screw in the wood screw. In hindsight, I should have purchased flat screws that wouldn’t have left a bump on the side of the frame, but these still worked ok.

5) For extra stability, staple at the joint of the two wood pieces.

6) Repeat steps 3-5 at all four corners.

7) Lay your fabric (shower curtain, etc…) across the frame. Mine needed to be ironed first.

8) If necessary, cut your fabric down to the correct size.

9) Pull fabric tight and staple along the inside of the frame to secure it.

I did this by myself, which was a little tricky. It might be helpful to have an additional set of hands to hold the fabric tight while you staple. This is also why I don’t have a photo of the corners, but I basically did them similarly to wrapping a present, folding one side across in a triangle shape and securing together inside the corner.

This lovely photo was taken by my eight year old.

Voila! You have yourself a very inexpensive DIY large canvas or piece of art. My total cost for this entire project was under $25. Check back for details on the colorful potato printing art project I painted on this canvas!

Would you attempt this DIY large canvas? It is seriously so simple! Don’t forget to pin it to your DIY board for reference later!