If there is one thing I love in this world, it is taking pictures of my little girl. She has been photographed so many times in her four years that my husband actually had to buy me a separate hard drive to store her photos. Every time I switch out the pictures in our frames, I get a little sad. I love the new photos, but I always miss having the older pictures around, especially the fun candids.
To bring a lot of those older photos out of hiding, I wanted to make a large photo collage of favorite pictures in the seven years that my husband and I have been together. This collage has pictures from when we were dating, our engagement and honeymoon as well as our favorites of our family after our daughter joined the family. While I have seen a few similar projects, none of them were quite my style so I decided to go my own way and ended up with a piece I love. By using coupons at the craft store and waiting for a good print sale, I was able to make my entire project for less than $10. Here’s how:
To make this project you will need:
- A large piece of foam core, Mine is 32×40
- Pictures (I used 52 4×6 images, but I ordered about 100 to give myself options)
- Matte Mod Podge
- sponge brush
- paper cutter
I started in the top left corner of my foam core. I trimmed excess background out of each photo with a paper cutter. For some images this left me with the entire image, for others it trimmed it down quite a bit. By trimming the images, it allowed me to fit many more images on the board than if I had left them the same size.
I moved from top to bottom and then left to right, filling the foam core with pictures, leaving a small space between in photo. I didn’t measure any distances, I just eyeballed each space because the photos were all different sizes and so the spaces would have to be unique to each one. After I had all of the photos placed, I took a snapshot of the project, just in case it got bumped.
Starting from the top left again. I turned each photo over one at a time and added a thin coat of Mod Podge to the back of each photo and then secured it to the foam core. When the entire board was Mod Podged in place, I then covered the entire board in a coat of Mod Podge. I allowed it to dry completely and then I did a second coat of Mod Podge over top.
When the project was completely dry, I hung it in my entry way using 3M strips.
This collage makes me smile every time I see it. I love that there are 7 years worth of memories hanging in our entry way.
So cute Debra. I also love the bright yellow welcoming you into your house!
This is so cute!
Fun idea!
I love this. I think I might try to do this for the kids because they love looking at photos of themselves especially when they were babies. I'm raising a generation of narcissists 😉
This is the best and simplest direction on how to make a picture collage I have ever read. I have been wanting to do this for years. Thanks for the inspiration!