Home Decor Ideas: Using Your Printer

There are a lot of amazing home decor projects you can do with your printer. You’ve got everything from different kinds of DIY transfer papers to printables, and plotter prints. You can get really crafty, or there are ideas that just require you to hit the ‘print’ button

Transfer Magic

Transferring onto wood is a great home decor piece to have. Black and white photos look best on raw wood. For this though you’ll need a Lazerjet printer, or find someone who does. You can find the directions to making the black and white wooden photo in picture (1) here. A white backdrop works best if you want to do a color transfer – just check out the bench in picture (2) from Poppy Talk.

Or how about transferring your photos onto ceramic tiles to create your own homemade coasters (3) – follow along with the instructions here.

You’ve also got fabric transfer printing paper – which is what was used to transfer the bee image onto the napkin (4). Check out Sophia’s Decor to see the other transfers she has done – like transferring vintage graphics onto chairs and tote bags.

Water slide decal paper was used to transfer a free printable onto a flower pot – seen in picture (5) from Lost Bird Studio.

Lumi sun print paints are the the latest thing in photo transferring. What you do: print out a negative image on a transparent sheet (which you can do at home with an Inkjet printer), then you coat your fabric (or other material) with the Lumi Inkodye, place the negative image on top of it and leave it out in the sun. The negative image blocks out the sun, which exposes the image – just like the DIY canvas print in picture (6).

The Gift of The Internet – Printable Ideas

The internet is a true friend when it comes to free printables. You can get everything from artwork and hand lettered quotes, to labels for jars, notebooks and gifts.

Over at Tried and True you can download the outline artwork of the quote from picture (7) and paint it in. Then there are the free antique labels that Cathe over at Just Something I Made has put up for free download. She used the labels to create her own hand towel labels (8) – awesome!

Feel like doing a little origami? Mr Printables has printable templates for creating your own display letters (9).

Plain Printing

Here are some ideas that just require good old fashion printing. First is a confetti sheet of travel photos I created and printed out on glossy paper (10). Check the how to guide here: Travel Photos Confetti Display – Plus DIY Printables Guide.

This next DIY project is an easy one, and cheap. But you will need to go out to a printer like Kinkos or Staples. Ask for Blueprint/Plotter/Engineer prints and you will get some huge black and white pieces for around $5++ just like the one in picture (11) by A Beautiful Mess.

Why not print out your photos, like I did with my travel photos, and create your own little stands. I used air dry clay to make the stands in picture (12) – which you can find the instructions to here.