Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Family Photo Project






I had a space in our family room that was begging for something to fill it. I have to admit that after a year and a half of living in our house I still haven't put up more than a few pieces of artwork. Part of this is because I want to wait to find the perfect pieces and part is the general cost of art. I knew that to fill a large space I would need to get creative. I have wanted to put together a collection of family photos since I saw a similar display in a friend's house more than 10 years ago.

In order to create a link between pictures from various eras, I had my hubby (once again coming to the rescue of a project of mine) scan in the pictures and convert them to black and white. Using photoshop I cropped them and had them printed up in either 5x7 or 4x6 prints. I then began to scour the local second hand shops, dollar stores, and big-box clearance sections to find all of the frames I would need, while sticking to a budget. I am proud to say that I didn't spend more than $5 on a single frame. All it took was a few cans of gloss black spray paint to turn my dog's breakfast of frames into a cute bunch of frames that now looked like they belonged together. I picked up a few white mats and voila! Hanging them proved to be the worst part of the job. Although laying them out ahead of time helped, I think I measured twice and still put double the number of nail holes into the wall than what was required. A few choice words and a couple of deep breaths later, I am quite pleased with my thrifty art project. It's proved to be a conversation starter, discussing who looks like who. The best moment though was showing it to my Grandma, who at 82, absolutely loved it.

(the first photo is my husband at around 3 years old, and the second is of my Dad's parents)

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