Our Founder's Story — Why I Started AmourPrint (Kirstie's Story) | AmourPrint
Our Founder's Story
I'm Kirstie. I founded AmourPrint in 2021 because the personalized canvas market was broken and I knew exactly how to fix it.
The Origin Story
My husband and I had been married for a few years and I wanted a song lyric canvas of our first dance song — "Tennessee Whiskey" — for our anniversary. I shopped Etsy. I shopped the big print sites. Every single option had at least one of these problems:
- The seller was a middleman who drop-shipped from a print farm overseas
- The layout was generated by a bot with no human review
- The proof was either skipped entirely or sent AFTER printing was already started
- The hanging hardware was a $15 add-on charge
- Customer support replied 4-8 days later, if at all
I ordered three different canvases from three different shops to compare. All three had layout issues. One had our names misspelled. One arrived with a damaged corner. One never shipped — the seller went quiet and I had to file a dispute.
What We Do Differently
That experience became the operating manual for AmourPrint. Five hard rules from day one:
1. Free PDF proof before we print, every time.
Within 12 hours of your order, you get a PDF preview by email. You confirm, edit, or cancel. We don't print until you approve. This catches 99% of issues before they become problems.
2. Single US studio, no outsourcing.
Every canvas is printed in our small studio on Epson SureColor printers with archival pigment inks. Same canvas, same inks, same QA on every order. No marketplace lottery.
3. Free hanging frame and wall hardware on every order.
No upsell. The gallery-wrap frame and wall-mounting kit are included. Ready to hang out of the box.
4. I personally answer escalations.
Routine support questions get answered by my team within 4 hours business days. Anything escalated comes to me personally. My email is in your order confirmation.
5. Honest reviews — including the negative ones.
Read our reviews page. We've kept the bad reviews up alongside the good ones. Hiding feedback is what broke the market we entered.
The Numbers (Through May 2026)
- 4,503+ verified 5-star reviews on our Shopify product pages
- 4.96 / 5 average rating
- 4.7 / 5 independent rating on RealReviews.io
- 389 reviews on Trustpilot (mixed — we're working to address the support-response complaints from peak Mother's Day season)
- 89% of customers display their canvas within 7 days of delivery
- 43% reorder within 12 months
- 21% of our anniversary orders are Disney first-dance songs — "Married Life" from Up is the single most-ordered Disney lyric
What I'm Working On Now
2026 priorities:
- Faster proof turnaround — we're cutting 12-hour to 6-hour proof delivery
- Better international shipping — currently best-in-class to US/Canada, working on UK + Australia
- Memorial canvases — these are personal and I review every one. We've added handwriting reproduction (you send a photo of the loved one's handwriting, we use it on the canvas)
- Spotify code variant — now our #2 product after the standard lyric canvas
If You're Press / HARO / Featured
I'm happy to be quoted on:
- Personalized gift trends and order data (4,500+ orders worth of data)
- The Disney first-dance song phenomenon (21% of our anniversary orders)
- Wedding gift industry analysis
- Running a US-based hand-printing studio in 2026
- Memorial gift category
Reach me directly at kirstie@amourprint.com. I respond to journalist queries within 24 hours.
Talk to Me
Have a question about your order? A canvas concept you want to talk through? A custom request? Email me directly. I read every message.
Kirstie M.
Founder, AmourPrint
kirstie@amourprint.com