Mother's Day Gift

Create your own Mother's Day gift. Below are the steps for this 3 panel personalize photo collage.

Don't want to do 3 panels? Just do one!

Materials:
Boards - I used 3 but you decided (I would stick with an odd #; 1, 3, 5)
Matte Black Spray paint 
Pictures - I was able to find three photographs from my childhood with my brother and sister. Print these pictures on thick paper. I used Card Stock.
Mod Podge
Eye Hooks - You'll need 10 if you create three panels
Twine

Start with the boards. Either buy some precut boards or cut them
down to the correct size.

Spray paint your boards. Be sure to cover the sides.

Once your paint has dried grab your eye hooks. I drilled a few
holes in the top and bottom of my boards to ensure they were
all in the same place.

Screw them in

Cover just the board with Mod Podge (without your picture).
Then place your photo on the board and cover the photograph
with Mod Podge too.
**** I used my inkjet printer but I think it would be better to
use a laser jet if you have one available.

Let the Mod Podge dry for about 12 hours. Then sand down
the edges. I roughed up other parts of the board and some
parts of the photograph too.

Use your twine to connect all the pieces. This was the
hardest part of this project for me. You want to make
sure the twine on each side is the same length or
your photos will hang crooked.

Here are my 3 photos: Summer time in the backyard

Building a snowman!

Summer vacation

And you're ready to wrap it up.

Song Lyrics Artwork

Have a favorite song? Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is a favorite of Jason and I. (Video's at the bottom of the blog. Watch out it's catchy and gets stuck in your head!) We love the lyrics and usually catch ourselves singing a line or two... or whistling it. So I thought I'd make some artwork.

You don't need many materials for this project: A piece of wood,
some lyrics, paint, exacto knife and contact paper.

I had this piece leftover from my Scrabble Board project

I typed the lyrics out and designed them to fit within the right size.

I taped off my border

I laid down the contact paper and then the lyrics

I started by covering the back of the lyrics page with
graphite and then traced over the letters.

You can see it transferring over here. But I soon learned
just cutting out the letters of the paper with an exacto
knife will transfer the graphite too. For an easier way
to transfer your lyrics view Living with Lindsay's blog

I'm pretty sure I just about broke my fingers cutting
these letters out.

And if the last step didn't break it then going back
over the contact paper to ensure the cuts were all
made correctly definitely broke my fingers

The fun part... peeling the contact paper off to leave the letters

I ran my brayer over the letters to make sure they
were nice and snuggle against the wood before
I started painting

I brushed paint on but I think I would use spray paint
next time, for one, it would be a faster way to paint. But
also I noticed the paint I used was a little too liquidy
and ran under my letters

I wanted the black paint to pop so before I pulled up in letters
I sprayed the board with a glossy clear coat

Here you can see where some of the paint seeped
under the contact paper.

Definitely like it though. Now I just need
to figure out how I want to frame it.