I Love Image Transfers!

My second submission to BlueMoon Scrapbooking's Best Altered Item contest was an altered canvas wall hanging I did with a couple of photos from our recent honeymoon trip to Alaska.  I'd been wanting to do some image transfers for a while and thought it would be a fun project to transfer an image onto a piece of canvas for the background.  I figured the texture of the canvas would show through the image and give a really neat effect.  I've gotten a few questions about how I did this so I'm listing the steps here.

Original image.  This is a shot of the view from Totem Bight Park in Ketchikan, AK.

Image transfer

1.  I purchased an 8x10 pre-primed and stretched canvas from Michael's
2. I sprayed the canvas with a couple of coats of Old Lace glimmer mist, letting each layer dry between sprayings
3. I then printed my 8x10 photo onto an ink jet transparency (remember that when you transfer the image it will be in reverse so adjust as needed prior to printing)
4. After the canvas dried, I coated it with a light/medium layer of gloss gel medium (Claudine Hellmuth).  The layer of gel medium was not too thick nor too thin.  Too much gel medium and your image will not retain detail, too little gel medium and your image will not transfer fully.  I wanted a partial transfer on this image to give it a vintage look so I kept my gel medium layer on the thinner side.
5. I immediately laid the transparency onto the wet canvas printed side down and gently rubbed across the image with my finger.  Too much rubbing and the transparency will move and your image will blur.
6. I let the transparency sit on the canvas for another minute or so, then burnished it again with my finger.
7. I then carefully lifted off the transparency to reveal the image.  Some parts of the image transferred better than others so the glimmer misted color shows through and the whole background has a really nice sheen, which is what I was going for.
8. I let the canvas finish drying and then embellished the rest.  I painted the edges in Peeled Paint crackle paint.

Finished project

For the frame around the photo, I took a slide mount and embossed it with my Cuttlebug.  I then sprayed it with glimmer mist, rubbed the raised parts with ink, and then added some of the crackle paint.  I also crackle painted the metal "love" tag at the top.  I am so addicted to crackle paint!  I love it!!

The blue "ribbon" is actually seam binding that I sprayed with glimmer mist (also an addiction) which I also used to spray the burlap flower leaves as well as the chipboard corner and the center of the flowers.  The corner also got a nice coat of course crystal glitter once it was dry.

The lacy border that goes over the blue ribbon is actually the paper backing from a Prima felt border. I loved the way it looked so I used it.  Haha!  This was my first foray into reusing packaging in my projects and there is a whole 'nuther blog post to come about the fun goodness there!

There are also tons of great videos on image transfers out there on YouTube.  I hope you try this technique.  It has so many possibilities and I'd love to see what you come up with!

Supplies used:

• 8x10 pre-primed and stretched canvas (Michael's)
• Glimmer mist in Old Lace, Blue Skies, Riptide, Cherry blossom (Tattered Angels)
• Chalkboard glimmer mist in Peacock (Tattered Angels)
• Ink jet transparency film
• Gloss gel medium (Claudine Hellmuth)
• Crackle paint in Peeled Paint (Ranger)
• Seam binding (Jo Ann's)
• Felt border paper backing (Prima)
• Crochet flowers (Jolee)
• Metal "love" tag (Michael's)
• Burlap leaves (Prima)
• Metallic leaves (Michael's)
• Slide mount (Hot off the press)
• Embossing folder (Cuttlebug)
• Timber Brown StazOn ink
• Chipboard corner (Tattered Angels)
• Course crystal glitter (Martha Stewart Crafts)
• Letter stickers and rub ons
• Crystal bling