This might be one of my favorite DIY’s I’ve posted to date.  It’s totally original–dreamt up in my own little crazy brain, it involves photos which is always a home run in my book, and hipstamatic photos from my iPhone at that–so I’m pretty excited about it.  But, let me say right from the get-go…if you don’t have an iPhone or you do but don’t use hipstamatic (which is an awesome app) no fear.  You can do this with ANY photographs that you take, no matter what you take them with.

I dreamt this up though because I take all these little pictures with my phone, that have cool filters on them, unusual borders, and are just all around awesome, but then I don’t necessarily do anything with them like I do with the pictures that I take on my actual camera.  And I thought…that’s ridiculous because they’re part of the memories of our life too.  And I have a whole year’s worth of these neat little pictures on my phone and they’re just sitting there.  They need to be on display!

So here’s what I did. I e-mailed all of the little files to my photo printing guys at the place I use to print pictures.  I told them I wanted them all printed 2×2.  This was pretty easy for them to do since they could just drop about 20 of them onto an 8×10 sheet and cut them apart.  And to that end, you could do this yourself too in any photo editing software.  I just didn’t feel like dealing with it, so I opted to pay $10 to have my trusty photo friends do it for me.  So once you have these darling little pictures printed you’re ready to go.

Step 1:  Gather your supplies.

• An old cutting board!  FREE. But really, any old board will do–I just have a penchant for cutting boards so I always have an old one laying around.
• A can of spray paint.  $4.  I have two cans pictured because at the time I couldn’t decide what color I wanted to go with…..cream won in the end.
• Rubber cement. FREE for me, I have tons.  Otherwise about $3.
• Mod Podge.  Also FREE if you have it on hand.  Or, $4 from a craft store.  I used the matte version.
• A small sponge brush.
• A tape measure.
• Your pictures.  I used 25 total for a 12 x12 cutting board.

And really, how cool are these little pictures?

Step 2: Plan your layout.

I laid out exactly how I wanted my pictures to be ordered.  This helped me decide to paint my cutting board cream.  I saw a lot of cream in the pictures, or tones of it, and decided that’d look best.

Step 3:  Paint your board.

I put about three coats of paint on my board, both on the top and bottom.  I let each coat dry over-night to make sure it was perfect.  You probably don’t need to wait that long but I got busy too…so it was no big deal.

Step 4:  Measure out your layout.

This is important because you want your design to be centered on whatever you’re using.         You need to lay out your pictures, measure how much space they take up compared to how big your working surface is and subtract the two to figure out how much of a margin you’ll need on each side.  Whew.  That’s the extent of my math right there.  I had to break out a calculator.  I’ll admit it.

Step 5:  Glue down your pictures.

Once you know exactly where everything needs to go start gluing.  Just like when you tile a floor–start in the middle and work your way out.  I used rubber cement for this. And again–I let them dry overnight with the mutha’ of all dictionary’s on top of it to make sure everything dried flat.

Step 6:  Mod Podge.

No matter how many times I use this stuff I always have this moment of hesitation that it won’t really dry clear right before I use it.  I hover over my project, brush in hand, and take a deep breath before I swipe that first stroke.  And it’s always fine, so don’t worry.

I put about six coats of Mod Podge on this project since pictures have a good edge to them.        I let each coat dry for about an hour.

Step 7:  Love this totally original piece of art work that is both utilitarian and beautiful!

 

Post by Maggie Terryn : Mom Colored Glasses