Canvas Alternative Ikea Hack

I had a vision of hanging large, square prints of our boys for years.

I scoured canvas printing companies, but even with coupons or Black Friday deals, they were still very expensive. Especially for prints of young children who change from year to year.

After letting the idea of canvas prints simmer in my mind, I stumbled upon the perfect alternative while walking through Ikea last fall.

Since almost every visitor that comes to our home asks me about the prints that hang in our family room, I thought I'd share my simple alternative.

Plus, I patted myself on the back a little bit for coming up with the idea on my own, without the use of Pinterest. That's almost unheard of these days.

My secret? Ikea Lack side tables. I spotted the 21x21 inch square tabletops and knew they would be perfect on the wall. I ditched the legs and used the pre-drilled holes on the backs as nail holes. 

I ordered high resolution 20x20 lustre prints from Nations Photo Lab. I'm really picky about quality and they always do an excellent printing job. They were having a sale right before the holidays, so I went ahead and had the images mounted on single weight matboard as well. I wanted them to have more structure and more of a finished look since they wouldn't be in frames.

For mounting, I ordered some heavy duty magnets with adhesive backing and placed one in each tabletop corner. I used tiny 1/8 inch magnet cubes to hold the prints in place. I ended up adding a tiny bit of hot glue to the back of the prints as well, just to secure them and prevent slipping.

The prints will be so easy to replace in years to come. My only problem now is that this fourth baby is going to alter my perfect arrangement of three.