Your memory, on your wall

Our story

Our Paint By Numbers began with a single old photograph. Our founder, Elena Marsh, had lost her grandmother, and among the family pictures was a soft, slightly faded portrait she couldn’t stop looking at. She didn’t want it tucked back into a drawer or lost in a phone. She wanted it on the wall — but a printed copy felt too easy, too distant from the person it held.

So she painted it. Not as a trained artist — she wasn’t one — but stroke by numbered stroke, one colour at a time, over a few quiet evenings. When it was finished and framed, something clicked. The hours she’d spent matching each shade had made the portrait feel like hers in a way a print never could. Everyone who visited stopped in front of it. And Elena realised a finished canvas on the wall means far more than another gift left in a drawer.

That’s the whole idea behind this company. We’re not really in the paint business — we’re in the business of helping you keep the moments that matter. A dog who’s no longer here. Grandparents on their wedding day. The view from a trip you’ll never forget. You send us the photo; we help you make it something worth hanging. Since then, more than 250,000 paintings have been created by painters like you, and our kits hold a 4.9 out of 5 average rating — a number we work hard to keep honest.

What we believe

A few simple convictions shape everything we make and every email we answer.

A keepsake beats a gadget

Your memory, on your wall. It’s our whole reason for existing. The best thing you can make from a photo isn’t a mug or a phone case — it’s something you built with your own hands and see every single day. We design our custom kits so the finished piece looks like the person, the pet or the place you love, not a rough approximation of it.

You should see it before we print it

Most custom sites convert your photo automatically and ship it blind — which is exactly why so many faces come back wrong. We do the opposite. A real designer works on your photo, we email you a digital proof, and we revise it for free until it’s right. We only print once you say yes. If the finished canvas still doesn’t resemble your photo, we re-do it free. You can read the full process on our how it works page.

Honest shipping, always

We never advertise “free shipping,” because nothing is truly free — the cost just gets hidden in the price. Instead we show your shipping cost plainly at checkout and give you a real delivery window: around 10–16 business days in the US and 12–20 business days for the rest of the world, with a couple of extra days for custom kits while we prepare and print your proof. If a parcel is lost or arrives damaged, we replace it free. We’d rather tell you the honest truth about timing than win a sale we can’t deliver on.

Kits that are kind to finish

Plenty of people start a paint-by-numbers kit and never finish it. Usually that’s the kit’s fault, not theirs — thin canvas, muddy printing, paints that dry out halfway through. We use quality numbered canvas, clearly printed lines and pre-mixed acrylic paints, and if you ever run low on a colour we’ll send more, free, for the life of your kit. Finishing should feel good, and a finished canvas is the whole point.

How we’re different

There are a lot of paint-by-numbers sellers online. Here’s where we deliberately part ways with most of them.

Our promises to you

These aren’t marketing lines. They’re the specific, checkable commitments we make on every order.

The people behind the paint

We’re a small, remote team — designers who prepare your proofs, a resident artist who tests every technique we recommend on real kits, and a support crew who genuinely reads your emails. Elena still guides the brand and answers questions about turning photos into keepsakes. We keep the team lean on purpose: it means fewer scripts, more real answers, and a person who actually cares whether your grandmother’s portrait comes out right.

Above all, we try to be the kind of company we’d want to buy from — one that tells you the truth about your photo, your timing and your kit, and stands behind the canvas long after it ships. There’s a gentle, unhurried calm to painting one number at a time, too, and we love that side of it — but for us it always comes back to the memory you end up hanging on your wall.