Acrylic photo gifts make your photos pop

When we moved into our house 7 years ago, I went out and spent a fortune professionally printing pictures and then getting them framed and matted. Then we planned out large photo designs and hung them gallery-style across our wall. And we haven’t done much else since.

But, recently my walls got quite the shakeup when I was given the opportunity to create an acrylic mounted print that doesn’t require a frame. A relatively new medium for displaying photographs, acrylic photo gifts are turning photo displays on their heads.

Unlike what might first come to mind, photos on acrylic aren’t just a standard printed photo laminated or incased in acrylic sheets. Rather, the photo is printed directly onto large acrylic sheets {think plexiglass} via a flatbed printer. I would describe the end result as like hi-def television, but in a photo. 

The photo we chose for our acrylic picture is a rather untraditional one from a series of photos my aunt took of my family, but I thought that was perfect for a very untraditional wall art option. I loved how the acrylic really made the colors pop and the depth of the photo really come out in a way that mounting behind glass wouldn’t have. My one and only gripe is I wish it was bigger. Bigger is truly better when we’re talking about something this cool.

You seriously cannot walk by the acrylic picture hanging on the wall without admiring it. To call it gorgeous would be an understatement as this is truly an exquisite piece of art. Of course, I’m biased because the picture is one that is special to me already, but I think even unbiased parties would agree that the medium itself is beautiful.

When buying your acrylic print, pay close attention to details. We’ve seen some prints that are extremely thin and have a black backing on them that shows from the sides and makes it look cheap, and then there are wood mounts that are sturdy and easy to hang. Go with the wood options.

Because while the photo on acrylic has a very low profile {about the thickness of a sheet of glass from a picture frame}, the wood frame below will add a little dimension to the frame itself to make it really jump off the wall.

While I still like the low cost of frames and the flexibility of being able to change out pictures easily and probably wouldn’t switch to all acrylic prints for the entire house, sometimes you just want something different. This is definitely it, and would be the perfect investment for preserving that amazing shot you will never get sick of. And, although frame styles may change with the decades, this is one “frame” you will never outgrow, so it really is an investment.