Picture this: it’s Friday and you just realized Mother’s Day is in two days and you need a thoughtful and unique gift pronto. Nothing at Target or Hallmark seems personal enough. You want to give something from the heart, preferably handmade, that doesn’t take a ton of time and won’t break the bank. I saw this sweet idea for a photo collage gift on Pinterest and thought I’d give it a try to give as gifts to Charlotte’s grandmothers this Mother’s Day. They turned out beautifully and were super easy to put together.
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First you’ll need a pre-matted frame with enough spaces for photos to spell out the special lady’s name. I purchased a 6-opening frame to spell out “Grammy” for my Mom and a 4-opening version for “Mimi” for Don’s Mom. I bought these on Amazon for about $20 each but have seen similar ones at craft supply stores like Michaels. You’ll also need letters for your child to hold to spell out the names. I purchased white wood letters from Michaels for $4 each, which is a bit pricey for a one-off gift, but I think it would be cute to take updated photos each year using the same letters to either replace in the frames or add to a special Mother’s Day album for your loved one. This way you can get a lot of use out of them and the result is a sweet yearly growth progression project.
I took photos of Charlotte holding each letter using a neutral background and a simple outfit so the letters would really pop. I used my iPhone to take these shots in quick succession to catch her squirming around for different positions. Of course you need to be careful to keep a close eye on your baby when photographing them with large wooden letters. The ones I chose have a smooth finish with curved edges which makes them less dangerous if she decided to start gumming on one (which she didn’t during out little photo shoot session but would have made for a cute picture!). I tweaked my top picks in my Apple Photos program to remove any dark shadows and amp up the exposure a bit for nice bright shots.
I have an Epson Picturemate PM-400 compact photo printer which I use for my Project Life scrapbooking efforts. It connects wirelessly to my computer for easy and fast printing of 4″x6″ or 5″x7″ photos. I love how they turn out with this printer! It took only a few minutes for me to edit and print out the photos I needed for each frame.
I simply attached the photos using double sided table to the sample background sheet that came in each frame and presto, a beautiful handmade gift made in just minutes!
I love how these photo collage frames came out and I think they’ll make for special first Mother’s Day gifts to Charlotte’s grandmas. I plan on continuing the tradition of taking photos using the same white letters with each year and am thinking of putting together something similar for Don for Father’s Day since he loves how this turned out so much.
Do you have anything special planned for Mother’s Day this year? Feel free to tweet me photos if you decide to try this project as well. I hope you have a wonderful Mother’s Day celebration spent with loved ones!
Happy Mother’s Day! 💕
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