HOW TO GET LARGE, TIMELESS ARTWORK FOR YOUR HOME WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK

If you’ve ever shopped for large artwork, it doesn’t take long to realize that art can be EXPENSIVE. A quick scroll through the artwork sold by places like McGee & Co or Pottery Barn will reveal that good quality, large art prints can cost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars.

In this blog post I’m going to give you a quick look at how you can use Collection Prints‘ digital artwork to get large, timeless wall art for your home without breaking the bank!

Disclaimer: Some links contained in this post are affiliate links. That means that if you click on the link and purchase an item, I get a small percentage of that sale at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Please know that products and brands recommended here at stay home style are products that I use, love, and trust.

COLLECTION PRINTS

First up, if you’ve never heard of Collection Prints, it is an online art shop dedicated to sourcing high quality and timeless artwork at an affordable price! They have a wide variety of artwork in their shop, so there is something for every style and home. The pieces in each collection were carefully curated to work together, so you can mix and match to create a custom look for your space. They regularly add new collections to their website, and with a digital download cost of just $20 per print, you can easily change out your art for different seasons without breaking the bank! In addition, they have buy one get one free sales every so often, so if you can catch one of these sales, you can get two digital prints for the price of one!

Although they have both a digital download and paper print option for each piece of art in their collection, I personally think you can’t beat the value of the digital download. By purchasing a digital download, you will have the option to print that piece of art in any size and on any material you choose, and, if you have a Samsung frame TV, you can display that artwork on your TV! Plus, you can have that artwork printed as many times as you would like, so you can use the same piece in different areas of your home (as you’ll see I’ve done in the above photos), or have it printed in different sizes.

After purchasing a digital download, you will receive an email from Collection Prints with a link to download your art. Included in this download will be a set of 2-3 high resolution .jpg files that correspond to different aspect ratios. The aspect ratios DO NOT correspond the actual size of the print, but rather the ratio of the width and height. For example, if you wanted to get an 8×10 print, this size has a width to height ratio of 4:5, but a 4×6 print has a width to height ratio of 2:3. To print your image without cropping or resizing it, you will want to pick the aspect ratio that best matches the size of your print!

Since these files are are such high resolution, you can have the artwork printed in virtually any size, which is why Collection Prints digital downloads are the PERFECT solution for getting high quality, large art prints at an affordable price!

Below, I’m sharing a Pinterest board full of inspiration for how you can use Collection Prints in your home!

WHERE TO ORDER LARGE ART PRINTS

So now that you know where to get the art from, the big question is where do I order prints? In this section I’ll be sharing my two favorite places for ordering large, affordable prints and canvases!

1. CANVAS DISCOUNT

First, I want to tell you about where I ordered this large canvas print featuring Collection Prints’ Low Tide : Canvas Discount! Canvas Discount is an online print shop that specializes in creating high quality, custom canvas prints at an affordable price! In addition to canvas prints, they also offer acrylic, metal, and framed prints, as well as a variety of printed gifts, so you are sure to find exactly what you need. As a plus, all of their products are printed right here in the United States, so you’ll be ordering and supporting an American company!

While the base prices of most of the prints are not necessarily cheap, I have never seen Canvas Discount NOT have a huge sale or promotion going on. Currently, they are having a really great sale, and offering free shipping over $70, which makes ordering a large canvas or print SO affordable! This was the promotion that was going on when I ordered my large canvas print, and I was able to get this 36″x48″ canvas for just $72 with free shipping. Not to mention, I received my order in less than one week!

To order from Canvas Discount using a Collection Prints digital download, all you have to do is upload one of the .jpg files, and Canvas Discount will tell you all of the sizes you can order based on the resolution of your image. This ensures that your print will not be blurry or pixelated! Note, not every size is going to fall exactly into on one of the available aspect ratios, and that is okay! A 36″x48″ print has a width to height ratio of 3:4, so you could choose either of the 2:3 or 4:5 aspect ratio files and still achieve minimal cropping.

Once you’ve chosen your size, all you have to do is choose your thickness and edge design, and you’re ready to order! For our large print, we went with the standard .75″ thickness and a stretched edge design.

I was super impressed with the quality and price of this large canvas print. The colors are very true to what you see on your computer screen, and there was no distortion or pixelation in the print! You really can’t beat their prices either!

Although Canvas Discount does not offer a framing option for canvases, you can easily make your own frame. I’ll Include a framing option section later in this post where I’ll share the tutorial we used to make our wooden floater frame!

2. SHUTTERFLY

Shutterfly is one of my all time favorite places to order prints from! From canvas prints to photo books, they have so many options to choose from. A few things that I LOVE about Shutterfly are:

Their print quality is amazing. They always keep the colors true to the original image, and I have never experienced any type of distortion or pixelation from Shutterfly.
They ALWAYS have coupons. If you sign up for their emails or download the app, they regularly have sales and offer coupons, much like Canvas Discount!
Their built in design software is easy to use, making things like photo books a breeze!
They offer a framed canvas option. Having a canvas professionally framed (even at somewhere like Hobby Lobby) can be very expensive, so if you can catch a good sale, this is a really great place to get an affordable, framed canvas!

Just like with Canvas Discount, you can choose from a variety of different options, from canvases to framed to prints. You can also order regular photo prints in a multitude of sizes, allowing you to purchase a print for any frame you already have or purchase outside of Shutterfly.

Just like with Canvas Discount, you can choose from a variety of size options, as well as five different canvas framing options. Although Shutterfly does not give you a list of all the sizes you can order for your given image resolution, it will give you a warning if your resolution is not high enough to produce a quality print in your chosen size.

Again, the base prices are fairly expensive, but I have never known Shutterfly to not offer some type of coupon or sale! The pricing is a little bit higher on Shutterfly than Canvas Discount, but they do offer the option of a framed canvas, which is nice if you don’t want to do a DIY frame like we did.

Although I have not ordered a print from one of Collection Prints’ digital downloads from Shutterfly, I have ordered one of our engagement photos on a set of three canvases (as seen above)! The print quality is just as good, if not better than Canvas Discount, and they also have a really quick turn around time! In addition, I have also ordered numerous prints and both our wedding guest book and photo album from Shutterfly!

These prints and photo albums were all ordered from Shutterfly. Photos by Nathaly Norman Photography.

FRAMING OPTIONS

When it comes to framing Canvases, professional framing can get pretty expensive. Places like Hobby Lobby or Michael’s can do custom framing for reasonable prices, but I can almost guarantee you it will cost more to have your canvas framed than it costs for the canvas itself.

If you’re looking for an affordable way to frame your canvas print, my suggestion would be to do it yourself! There are so many tutorials on Pinterest for making canvas frames. We used this super easy tutorial from Making Pretty Spaces to create our floating canvas frame ⬇️

If you’re looking for an even more affordable option for using your Collection Prints digital download to create large art pieces for your home, you can always buy a large frame and just order a photo print! You can generally find large frames for cheap at places like Hobby Lobby, Michael’s, IKEA, Amazon, and Target. Shutterfly and Costco are also great places to get a large photo prints, which are usually very cheap in comparison to a canvas!

Halfway Wholestic (the creator of Collection Prints) has a great tutorial on how to use the 16:9 aspect ratio file to create a long landscape framed art print. Click here to view her blog post!