Family Scrabble Portraits

This had to be my FAVORITE "Christmas Gift To Do" List items!!  I got the inspiration from Pinterest-of course! They showed a frame with the words Love You in scrabble tiles with the letters sharing the "o".  I started thinking how cute would this be to use the same concept, but with the whole family?!?!  Of course, after I started brainstorming, I realized a couple of things.  First, a Scrabble game only has so many tiles of certain letters.  While there are several letter S's, there are less Z's :)  So, I used a game that I currently had and then I did have to buy one more game (9.99 at Walmart).  I purchased matted 11x14 frames from Walmart (5.00) each.  I ended up with 3 gifts altogether and I did share tiles with my co-worker who was creating the same project for her family members.  (She did lend me a S tile-Thanks Jenny! :)  So, that is $8 per gift. I just used a glue gun to adhere them to the cardstock.  With the tiles, you can't put the glass in front of the frame like you do a picture, but it needs the glass for stability.  I create the pic and then put it in the frame and put the glass in behind the pic so that it provides the structure needed to hold the paper and tiles in the frame.

This is a project that you need to lay out ahead of time to make sure that the names will work with each other.  For example, by brother in laws name is Tim, but Tim wouldn't work with what we had.  My sister always likes to call him Timmy and Timmy WOULD work-so guess what is on the frame :) Which he is just fine with.  I did want the names to all go off of the familys last name, so that was my goal.

The first pic is of my sister in law's and her family.  After using cardstock as the background, we realized that the frames just looked like they were missing something, so after talking to my dear hubby he suggested putting a vinyl saying of Family at the bottom-he is much more creative than I am. So, I did and I really like how it turned out.  Granted, could have added other stuff around the frame, but I really do like the simplicity of it and that the vinyl doesn't take away from the overall focus of the family tiles.

For the second scrabble tiles, I did change the background paper to match my sisters colors in her home.  Because of how tall their names were in the frame, they wouldn't fit within the mat.  So, I got out my trusty paper trimmer and took about an inch off the top and the bottom of the mat.  Because of this trim, the words Family would not fit.  Since they just got married this past summer, I put their Est 2011 on the bottom of their mat, which worked out will since it has a smaller width.

Needless to say, they both truly enjoyed their gifts.  My sister in law immediately sat down and started planning out how she could do the same with her babysitters family.  And of course, you know that lets you know they truly liked it when they started planning on how to create it for someone else! This project took 2 hours to glue down, cut, and frame!! That is 2 hours for both of them!

It's That Time of Year...

Totally and completley love the holiday season!!  I have tons to post, but only time to post this quick one for today.  This is a project that I found on Pinterest (I can hear the angels sing each time I think of that site) and so I knew I would just HAVE to try it!  It is just a simple picture frame made into an advent calendar-or frankly whatever you would like to use it for! 

I started off with just a plain black picture frame.  I think that a flat frame would be ideal-not sure that you would want to do it with a frame that had edges or any kind of decorative to the outside. I cut various sizes of circles out with my cricut-from 1/4 up to 1.5 inch circles.  I did this with both red and green circles and then I just put them scattered throughout the frame.  I just love the outcome!  My goal was to be an advent calendar, but really, this is cute as is for a frame.  But, of course, I had to stick with the goal in mind, so keep on reading! :)

I then took the glass out of the frame and applied about 3 layers of chalkboard paint on the glass.  Once that dried this is the finished product!!  I love it.  I could see taking the green circles off and using white or red and putting it in my kitchen for a "notes" board or a running grocery list.  I just loved the look, though.  I will say that afterwards I noticed that the chalk left a residue when I cleaned it, so I applied another 3 layers of chalkboard spray paint and that solved the problem.  I guess because it is a glass base it took a little more than a wood base would take.

Hope you can add this item to your Christmas Cheap Frugal Homemade Lists! :)