Whether you’ve recently moved into a new home, you’re remodeling your current home, or you’re simply looking for a refreshed home decor design, a custom gallery wall will bring your living space new life. Using your own photography or favorite designs and images, you can easily DIY a gallery design that perfectly fits your home. Not sure how to get started? We’ll help you plan, create, and hang your canvas prints from start to finish. Jump to a section below to begin designing a gallery wall with canvas prints.
Jump to:
- Planning Your Canvas Print Gallery Wall
- How To Make And Order Canvas Prints
- How To Hang Your Gallery Wall
- Additional Tips And Ideas For Wall Art
Planning Your Canvas Print Gallery Wall
Consider photo spacing, wall background, canvas sizes, and home decor style. What’s the theme? Are you looking for black and white designs or text-based images?
1. Find Some Inspiration
From inspirational color palettes to Pinterest boards on wall decor, there’s plenty of ways to find new ideas when planning your canvas print gallery wall. You may want to create a mood board in preparation for building your gallery wall. Include all the colors already in your wall space, any wall display designs that you’ve found and loved, and anything else of visual interest. For more inspiration, make sure to check out our other home decor ideas.
2. Choose A Room
Choosing the perfect room for your canvas prints is an essential step in planning. Make sure that you choose a room with plenty of space that matches the style of your intended gallery wall. For example, nooks and small spaces in bathrooms, closets, or other similar areas may leave you with too little space to bring your gallery to life. Consider larger rooms such as living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, and even open stairwells.
3. Plan Out Your Photo Wall
Your canvases need careful planning to look their best. We recommend using painter’s tape, a ruler or tape measure, and a leveling rod for measuring out exactly where you want your canvas wall to hang. By using the canvas measurements provided in your order, you’ll know exactly how large of a space each canvas print needs. Try to leave at least an inch of space between canvas prints, and make sure whatever spacing you choose in uniform for the entire gallery wall layout. Use the painter’s tape to mark the spaces, then step back to determine if you’re happy with your art gallery.
4. Leave Space For Picture Frames
Picture frames can help you bring your canvas prints to life– as long as you plan for them. Framed add dimension to your photos, but they also add to the wall space. Make sure you plan for the additional room ahead of time to prevent your canvas layout from looking too crowded.
5. Edit Your Digital Photos
Before you actually create the works of art that will hang on your gallery wall, you need to edit your photos. Family portraits, pictures of wildlife, wedding photos, and scenery images all need to meet a minimum quality standard before you can order them on a canvas print? Not sure if your photos are high quality enough for printing? Try placing them on the product and check for a warning symbol that will let you know if it’s too small or too low of a resolution.
How To Make And Order Prints on Canvas
Do you have the perfect gallery wall inspiration? Have you already measured out space on your intended walls? When you feel you’ve planned to the best of your ability and you’re ready to start creating your prints on canvas, you’ll want to follow the simple steps below.
1. Find And Upload Your Photos
The first and most important step to creating a canvas print is to first find and upload your special photos. Whether they include family photos, landscape portraits, or even digital paintings– you want to upload them and organize them into the correct folders on your Shutterfly account. You’ll also want to use this step to both ensure that the photos have been edited to your satisfaction using our photo editor, and that they’re high-quality and ready for printing.
2. Pick Your Canvas Type And Size
Once you have a sense of the photos you want to include on your photo wall, it’s time to pick the canvas prints that will help bring your vision to life. Canvases include space for one to four photos, depending on the style you choose. Between the color, framing, and size, you can easily create the canvas layout and design of your dreams. Canvas sizes include:
- 8×10
- 10×14
- 10×20
- 10×24
- 12×12
- 12×36
- 16×16
- 16×20
- 20×30
- 24×36
- 30×40
- 36×36
While creating your gallery wall, ask questions like what you want as your focal point or how to match your canvas to a wood frame. And don’t forget to include your own personal touch in whatever wall art you choose.
3. Edit Your Design
After choosing your selected canvas print and style, it’s time to start placing photos. When in the project simply click “get photos” to import the photos you want to feature. You can then drag and drop these photos from the library near the bottom of your project. You may also edit these photos using the photo editor tool.
4. Review Your Canvas Print
Happy with your completed canvas print and ready to order? If so, make sure you take the time to review your final project for any mistakes. It’s important to catch these mistakes before printing. Things to look for include low-quality images, misspellings in the text, incorrectly fitting images, and color correction.
5. Order Away!
Once reviewed, simply add your completed canvas print to your cart. Whether you’re ordering one canvas or a whole gallery wall, our simplified check out process will help you check out quickly and easily. And once you’ve ordered the prints, it’s time to start measuring out your intended wall for the perfect wall art placement.
How To Hang Your Gallery Wall
Whether you’re hanging canvas prints or art prints, modern designs or your favorite photos, decorating your living room or dining room– we’ve got you covered. Follow the simple steps below to ensure the perfect gallery wall placement:
1. Find Some Supplies
First things first, it’s time to find all the needed supplies. We recommend a leveling rod, painter’s tape, a ruler or tape measure, a leveling rod, wall protection pads, a hammer, screwdriver, and nails (or equivalent hanging materials). Alternatives to nails include J-hooks, adhesive strips, sawtooth brackets, or eye hooks.
Note: If you’re ordering your canvas prints from Shutterfly, some of these supplies will come included. Our orders include a printed-to-scale hanging template, along with a self-adhesive level.
2. Create A Placement Plan
As discussed in the sections above, it’s important to create a template on your wall before hanging your art. We recommend that you use the wall templates included in your Shutterfly order. However, you can also create a planning grid with the tape measure and painter’s tape.
Additionally, don’t forget to measure out the distance between your intended gallery wall and other furniture. We always recommend hanging canvas prints with their midpoint between 56 and 60 inches from the floor, and eight to 10 inches above a piece of furniture.
3. Start Hanging Prints
Once you have everything planned and marked, it’s time to get to work. For traditional nail-hung canvas prints, you can hang each art piece up with the following simple steps:
- Step 1: Located your marked space on the wall. Find the intended mark for your nail or hanging placement.
- Step 2: Hammer the nail into the mark with one or two quick hits. Note: you don’t want to hammer the nail all the way in. Leave half an inch to an inch out.
- Step 3: Hang the canvas directly on the nail, with wall pads attached to the back of the print to protect your wall’s paint. If using one of the other hanging options including J-hooks or sawtooth brackets, please visit our complete resource on how to hang canvas art.
- Step 4: Repeat for every art piece until the wall is complete.
- Step 5: Once all canvases are hanging, use your leveling rod to ensure that every print is level. Then, using a ruler or tape measure, ensure that the spaces between your canvas prints are all level.
- Additional Help: For an instructive video, please visit our resource on how to make a gallery wall.
4. Enjoy!
Congratulations on completing your canvas print gallery wall! As you enjoy your new home decor, try to preserve the color and quality of your canvas prints by limiting direct sunlight on your gallery wall and taking care to ensure they’re not in a space where they can be easily knocked down.
Additional Tips And Ideas for Wall Art
Looking for some last-minute tips when created your wall art gallery? We’ve included a few useful hints to help you below:
- Feeling stuck when designing your template or arrangement for your gallery wall? If so, consider using our Design a Wall service. It will walk you through three easy to follow steps to make sure your gallery wall looks picture perfect in the end.
- When hanging your canvas prints, make sure to wipe down your intended hanging wall with a damp washcloth before hanging anything. You’ll want to work off of a clean surface.
- Looking for cool designs to feature on your canvas prints? Check out our art library. From incredible photos, to quotes, to patterns, there’s something perfect for everyone. You can also access the art library from within your edited project.
- Check out any additional wall art you may want to include on your gallery wall. Sometimes a mixture of canvas prints, metal prints, and more can add texture and visual intrigue to your gallery.
- Before starting to hang your canvas prints, make sure to move all your furniture out of the way. This will help you avoid any frustration of trying to reach around or over objects. However, it’s also important to mark where the top of the furniture is that that you don’t hang your canvas prints too low.
- While creating your canvas print, don’t be afraid to take a break and come back to your project later. Your canvas print will be saved under “My Project” within your Shutterfly account ready to be revisited whenever you’re ready. Additionally, you can also reorder or edit and then reorder the project later in the future by visiting “My Projects.”
Final Thoughts on Designing a Gallery Wall
We hope you’ve found this guide helpful and that you’re confident as you begin designing your own home gallery wall. If you liked this resource and you’re looking for more inspiration, make sure to visit our other gallery wall ideas. Ready to start creating? Make sure to customize your very own personalized canvas prints.
