Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!! We hope your day was wonderful - ours certainly was!!
There's nothing like little ones to add joy to the day!

Have a wonderful New Year!

Picture Letters

We were looking for something a little different this year for our grandkids for Christmas. We have had lots of fun with them through the years and decided to make their initials with pictures of them from birth to now. I first made the letters with paper - and a pencil and ruler. Our granddaughter's first and last name start with M and our grandson's first name starts with J. We felt the J was too small, so we gave him the JM insignia that my husband uses for his business. My elf helper then took the letters and traced them onto scrap lumber and cut them out with his jig saw. (Sorry, no pictures - he's a speedy elf).

The next step was to prime them

then to paint them. I didn't intend to paint both sides, but I painted the wrong side of the JM, so I was stuck with painting both sides. If you are sure you will totally cover all the wood with pictures, you probably wouldn't need to paint, but I was pretty sure that at least my edges would be showing.

Next step was to start decoupaging (mod podge) pictures to the letters. I would recommend getting your pictures photocopied onto regular paper as I tried to use some pictures that I had extras of, but they do not decoupage easily!

After applying the pictures, add another coat of Mod Podge and then a coat of Acrylic Sealer.

We plan to put picture hangars on the back as soon as the sealer is dry. And there you have it - a "memory board". (This is not a quickie project. It required many hours of sorting through photo albums, etc. as not all our pictures are digital. And then there's the "Awww, remember that - wasn't she cute - etc.). But we are pleased with the end result.

I'm linking up with Make if for Monday at Cottage Instincts ,

and Metamorphis Monday

Also ASPTL