Photo Art

As I’ve been dreaming up my new home office decor, I’ve been pinning lots of ways to display kids’ artwork and photographs. I love this sweet display of kids’  photographs using Organic Bloom’s colorful frames.

Image by Polka Dot Umbrella Photography.

When I read a few Pinterest comments about DIY-ing this look using decorative plaques from a craft store, I decided to give it a whirl. Michaels had different sizes and different shaped wooden plaques, all under a few bucks.

I printed a photo of my kids, mom and grandmother and hoped to mount it on a pretty painted plaque a la the picture of the gallery wall above, for a little gift for Gigi (that’s Great-Grandma).  I like to do all the really messy stuff all at once, so I brought out this project while we were using metallic spray paint for the Martha Stewart baskets.  Duh.  Pretty paint colors were all nixed because Ryan was not going to put down that can of spray paint. That’s okay; Gigi is a shiny kind of gal.

Ryan sprayed a larger (9 by 12) plaque and a few seashells (his idea!) in metallic silver and used a small paint roller to cover the smaller plaque with white paint (my idea – he wanted more shine). A little wood glue to attach the plaques, and some Mod-Podge (clear craft shellac) to glue and then seal the photo finished the deal. $5 and 5 minutes, excluding drying time.  And my five-year old really did the project from start to finish, except for a little help with the wood glue and centering the photo.

We’ll definitely be making more of these. Cute, and totally doable for kids to make for a Father’s Day or end-of-the year teacher’s gift, using either a photograph, artwork, a quote or a letter. The Mod-Podge coat adds a vintage sort of screen to it.  If you’d rather showcase a crisp photo or if you plan to update the photo, you could attach the photo with reusable/two-sided tape instead of using Mod-Podge.