I adore wall art. Every time I walk into a home décor store, I immediately search for pictures.

During my last trip to California, I fell in love with a canvas photo of the Seal Beach Pier at sunset and just had to buy it. I didn’t know it at the time, but the photo was of the exact spot on the pier where my fiancé would later propose. Romantic, right?

As a journalism major, I have a lot of photos floating around on my computer that I don’t know what to do with. I’d love to decorate my apartment with them, but the idea of having a million picture frames on my wall holding glossy 4-by-6-inch prints doesn’t really appeal to me. I don’t want my room to look like a gallery or a shiny, modern photographer’s studio.

I also don’t want my wedding (and engagement) photos to have the same boring look to them that everyone else has: displayed in some shiny metal picture frame with some sort of generically romantic phrase on the inside border. I’d rather have something that looks homemade and slightly worn, like it’s been loved by a human rather than spat out by a printer. My wedding will be vintage. Why can’t the memories look vintage too?

If you share my sentiment, you may also be wondering what to do with all of your amazing photos of birthdays and spring breaks past. But have no fear — there’s more to life than glossy photo paper. Why not put your lovely pictures on an artist’s canvas?

To start, just grab your favorite photo (printed in reverse with a laser printer), an artist’s canvas, a spoon, a rag, gel medium, a foam brush and a clear artist’s sealant.

Cover your image with a layer of gel medium and put it face-down on the canvas. Use the spoon to smooth out any bubbles so your picture will transfer completely (unless you’re trying to make it look frayed and imperfect). Make yourself a cup of tea and wait eight hours for the project to dry.

Once your project is dry, wet the rag and use it to completely soak your image. Then use your fingers to gently rub away the paper fibers. Your image should stay on the canvas, but if you want to make it look vintage and frayed, try rubbing a little harder on the edges. Wait for the canvas to dry and paint on a layer of sealant.

Another way to add images to canvas is with mod podge. At a recent Mizzou After Dark event, I grew disenchanted with the idea of blow-drying crayons on canvas. Instead, I cut out card stock rectangles in cute vintage patterns, painted a layer of Mod Podge on the back, and placed them on the canvas in a haphazard checkerboard-style pattern. Then I put a layer of Mod Podge on the tops to hold them in place.

After everything was dry, I cut out cardstock hearts in contrasting patterns and pasted them onto some of the rectangles. I now have an adorably abstract, shabby chic work of art on my wall, right next to the one I bought from Quirks. The quality is pretty identical, if I do say so myself.

If you don’t want to spend a fortune on Christmas presents this year (yes, I do know it’s not even Halloween yet), this is a great project that’s heavy on sentiment and low on cost. You don’t even have to tell people you made it — you can make them think that you went to some sort of fancy image-transfer artisan who charged you an arm and a leg to put your memories on canvas.

Of course, if you do tell people that you made it, they just might think you’re the craftiest thing since sliced bread.