So if you’re like our family you will have someone in the family who has all the old photos. With grace of heart they are willing to share. In my case it was my cousin who inherited all the photos. My cousin made sure to use modern day tech to give the inheritance to everyone, and scanned in many of our family photos. So sweet, and my children can enjoy these pictures that my family grew up with.
Well I also wanted to do something in my home that would embody my forefathers, so I decided Decoupage….LOL I know, Crazy…. But it turned out AWESOME… So now it’s my turn to share. I can show you how to put those old family photos to good use using modern tech. First a list of things you need to do this project:
Frame Tools
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It all started when I found two fairly thick frames at Goodwill, I will only use one for this project and save the other for another project one day. The frame was a bit beat, but since I plan to cover it and bring it to new life it won’t matter.
Homage to Family Gifts Continued...
Preparing the Frame
The first thing I need to do is work with the surface of the Frame, because it was varnished, I wanted to take most of the varnish off. This gives the wood a bit of texture to allow the glue to adhere to. The best way to do this is to use a fine Grain of sand paper; I sanded all the edges making sure I go with the grain of the wood. We only need the top layer off, so we can do this by hand. After I took a soft clean cloth and used it to rid the surface of any sawdust that might be left behind.
Homage to Family Gifts Continued...
Getting the Pictures
You can do this in several ways you can play with your word processor, and turn modern day photos to black and white; you can leave them as color. As well you could probably do this with many programs; my suggestion is to use OpenOffice (a free word processor). The word processor allows you to insert your pictures to one page and you can change them out if you find one that’s better. By playing with its picture options you can often change the picture colors, give it a tint, or turn it black and white. Also my printer (an HP) will allow me to change the page to only print from my black cartridge. Using Black Ink Cartridge is cheaper than using color, and turns all my pictures the same tint. I actually printed three pages of the pictures and used probably two and a half.
Individually the pictures are many different sizes and even shapes. I cut them apart so that we can change the direction of the pictures to fit on the frame. This arrangement makes it quite like a puzzle, once I figure out where I want the pictures to be placed I glue their edges down with rubber cement. You can also use tacky glue, or the mod podge itself, I prefer glue because it dries faster. Also if I use glue I can change position of the item if needed without it disturbing any other items in the project.
Homage to Family Gifts Continued...
Finding Many Ties
I slowly covered the whole frame and even wrapped them around the edges, using duplicates for the sides. As you can see in the picture to the right and using pieces of pictures I had cut apart for filling, this gave the whole project a bit of a scrapbook feel. My grandmother is the little girl in these photos, as you can see I had more than one pose with the stool and it was her in the swimsuit with the swim cap on. She took adorable pictures and I loved using them, they reminded me of my own children.
After most of them were put in place with the glue, I started the Mod Podge. Now I preferred Gloss, but you can use whatever finishes you like best with your project. I did about half the frame let it completely dry, before I did the other half of the frame. This keeps the finish from being ruined, because if you try to touch the pictures after you have put the Mod Podge on you run the risk of nicking or ruining the picture and finish.
Homage to Family Gifts Continued...
What’s a Letter?
I choose a letter to frame instead of another picture. My frame came with that natural wood insert that went between the frame and the glass. It definitely finishes the frame off nicely. The letter was simple you can either draw or you can print the letter you like. I used cardstock for the letter because it holds up to the painter pens I used with the nice silver sheen. I use the Elmer’s version because they work the best and can be used on just about anything. You can find them in your craft section by the paints.
Simply I just took a piece of white printer paper and using the frame as a guide I drew out the square I needed with a pencil. Then I cut it out and using double sided tape to put the letter on the blank paper. When finished, I put everything back together.
Tiffany L
homage_to_family_gifts.pdf |