Using a Door for a Photo Gallery

My mother-in-law was a water color artist & my husband is a photographer. On top of all the numerous pieces of artwork they’ve produced we also collect works of other favorite artist. Needless to say, there is never enough wall space in our home to display all of our collections. I wanted to frame more of Bob’s photos and needed a place to display them.

We have a glass door in the house that had been painted over years ago for privacy purposes. The glass panels in the door are recessed, providing nice spaces for pictures. I decided that removing the paint would probably be too much work & I wasn’t sure the glass would come out clear enough. So I began looking for pre-made frames that would fit the spaces. Since they weren’t a standard frame size, the frugal side of me decided custom sized frames would be too costly. I was fortunate enough to find 8”x20” frames for around $6 per frame. They fit perfectly inside across the recessed areas. Now all I needed was to come up with a way of attaching them to the door. I was looking for something to bridge over the frame that I could screw into the wood frame of the door. On Ebay, I found some wood triangles that I thought would look interesting. I ordered a package of them & some small brass screws. I then had to stain them to match the color of the wood frames. I then attached them with 2 screws to the sides of the frame and one screw into the door. The most time consuming part of the project was choosing which photos (there are thousands to pick from) to put together in each frame and then cutting some mats to fit them. Now that they are up, I find myself constantly staring at the beautiful door gallery.

Recycling a Children’s Book into a Scrapbook

I recently put together a scrapbook of photos for my father-in-law. He and the family spent many summers in Connecticut where he worked as an entertainer at a summer resort called Banner Lodge. We had quite a few photos from over the years & I was inspired by an idea a saw in a library book “Mixed-Media Journals: Creatively Chronicling Your Life” by Katherine Duncan Aimone.

I began by purchasing a Children’s book for less than 50 cents at the thrift store. I got one with the thick cardboard pages & I was looking for a unique shape, but rectangular ones will work just fine. Then I bought a variety of scrapbook sheets that I felt fit the theme of a summer resort.

I first used a sharpie to color over the print down the seam of each page. I used mod podge to coat each page and smoothed a sheet of the paper over the top with a brayer, placing the sheet just to the ouside of the seam of the page so that it wouldn’t wrinkle & bunch in the fold when closed.

After it dried, I flipped it over and used an exacto blade to cut around the edge.

 

I scanned and printed my photos so they would be the size I wanted and cut decorative edges on some. I also printed out a few phrases to cut out. Rather than the scrap paper, I did use a photo of one of the buildings & photoshopped my title over it to use on the cover.

Sykin - Etsy Blogger of the Month

 
Missie of Sykin is a great all around Etsy supporter, you can go to her blog daily & find a newly featured etsy item. And she has 2 shops on Etsy herself. One features item from the Pacific NorthWest and the other has Twilight inspired items. Lets give her back our support.

Valentine Crafting

My husband & I don’t buy in to the commercialized Valentine’s Day crap of expensive jewelry and dinners out. We usually just make each other small tokens of our love. He made me some chocolate & coconut covered strawberries, YUM!!! And he added a post on his flickr page for me.

I made him a framed valentine. Some old photos I saw at an antique fair I visited last week inspired me. They were photos of couples in art deco like cardboard studio frames. I created an art deco design for the frame & planned to edit a photo of us with sepia. Realizing I didn’t have any photos of us that were right for the project, I decided to just do something artsy of myself (always fun trying to jump in front of the camera after you set the timer). He loved it & took it to work & hung it up.

Been Too Busy to Blog

Well I haven’t been blogging since thanksgiving, haven’t even kept up with the few blogs I follow. The last months of the year are a very hectic time for my family. Not only do we have the holidays with big family meals and xmas presents to make or shop for, but we also have 7 birthdays between the end of Nov. & the beginning of Jan. (including my own). Since I’ve gotten back into sewing and crafting, this year took a real toll on my time. I was totally wrapped up in crafting gifts, xmas shopping & shipping presents out of state. I neglecting my Etsy shop, my blog, and my xmas tree – it had lights on it for almost 2 weeks, finally got ornaments on Christmas eve. Just got the last birthday gifts off in the mail today, so things should slow down again. Now I’ll be posting a few pics of the gifts I made.
These 1st pictures are of sets of coasters I made mostly from my husbands photos, but a few photos are mine too. I found boxes of 6 coasters at the dollar store that had tacky touristy maps on them. I then had to crop all my photos to the right dimensions, print them, laminate them & glue them over the maps. I also glued a thin sheet of cork on the back of each one. I made 3 different sets, one for my brother, one for my brother-in-law & one for my niece’s husband.