Monday, January 21, 2013

Project Pictures

I am so in love with Pinterest! I know this is not a shocking revelation but I felt it had to be said. And I actually like to do the things I find there.  I'd been wanting to make pictures for our living room for a while but I didn't have any awesome pictures. Well, Minna and Angela of Love and Grace Photographs took care of that for me.  Thanks girlies!

And I had pinned this awesome tutorial a while back.  I was ready to go.

Step One: order pictures.  This took a while.  I comparison shopped at Walmart, Costco, CVS, Walgreens and Sam's Club.  Sam's Club was the least expensive.  I was able to get 2 20x24 poster prints, 4 8x10s and 2 5x7s for about $25.  I did have to get a photo release from Minna, though.  It wasn't a big deal but something to know when you get your photos printed at Sam's (or Walmart, I'd assume since they are the same company).

Step Two: get wood.  This required a trip to Lowe's.  I made Ryan go with me so he could talk to the Lowe's guys for me.  I'm weird that way.  We found 2x2 pieces of particle board for about $4 each.  In the Pinterest post, she says she had to pay Lowe's to cut the wood.  Our Lowe's cut them for free - woowhoo!! We had 2 pieces trimmed to 20x24 and 1 piece cut into 6 8x10s.  I also picked up some sponge brushes.

Step Three: get ModPodge.  I tried to get this at Lowe's because I'd never purchased it before. You should have seen the look on the dude's face when Ryan (see step 2, making Ryan talk to Lowe's guys for me) asked for it.  We should have asked if we could land our alien aircraft.  We would have gotten the same look.  Anyway, I got it at Walmart for $8.

Step Four: paint wood.  Since the wood is particle board, it didn't need to be sanded so I just went straight to paint.  I used our left over paint that matched the living room.  I painted the edges and one side of each piece.

Step Five: apply photos.  This is where I expected everything to fall apart.  I don't know why but I didn't really trust that the ModPodge wasn't going to ruin the pictures.  First you coat the wood with the MP. Then you lay down the photo and 'paint' over it with MP using sponge paint brushes.  But it all worked out beautifully!

Step Six: hang and admire.  Ryan hung them for me the night we took down all the Christmas decorations since he already had the ladder in the house.  He put two picture hangers on the big pictures and one of each of the small ones.  We even used a Pinterest trick to hang them.  We put a dap of toothpaste on each of the hangers then pushed them against the wall.  Then Ryan put the nails where the toothpaste was on the wall.

I'm really please with how they turned out.  And the whole project came in at about $50 so I wouldn't feel bad taking them down the next time we get our pictures done.  If I had spent a bundle on actual canvases, I'd feel like I had to have them up forever. 

Please to excuse the pictures of the pictures. It turns out it's harder than you think to take a picture of pictures hanging at the top of a wall....




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