Paint & Patience: $10 Photo Gallery, with a twist

I was recently (ok it's longer than recently, but who's counting?) browsing through Pinterest, and was inspired by this post:

http://www.craftaholicsanonymous.net/33-ideas-to-display-school-photos

Cute huh? I thought so.

So, a few weeks ago I happened to be in JoAnn's. They were having a sale on their craft letters, and I picked up this large W. This was a HUGE score, because they were on sale for 40% off, and, because it was slightly damaged, I ended up getting it for 60% off! Can't beat $3.50 for a 2-foot tall letter. Sorry, but you just can't.

Now I'll be honest and tell you that this thing floated around the house for WEEKS. Seriously. I lost count of the times I yelled at the boys to leave it alone, for fear of them bending it in half or otherwise mauling beyond repair. They have a history y'all.

I decided to paint the sides with my prize MyColor by Pantone paint in Medieval Blue. It's a deep cobalt, and I adore it. I actually won some samples of three colors from MyColor by Pantone last year, and had not yet used the Medieval Blue. It ended up being the perfect compliment to my photos, and just the pop of color I was hoping for.

Now, none of my projects would be complete without accompanying disparaging remarks from the men in my life. I received various versions of 'Wow, that looks like crap!' while painting the sides. It seems that, despite my years of painting, I've been unable to convey the idea that, it's always going to look worse with one coat of paint before it looks better.

For the photos, I just dumped a bunch of my favorites into a separate folder on the computer, then played with color and focus for a while. I wanted pops of blue and a smidge of green, so the photos that had that received a soft-focus watercolor treatment to mute the colors a bit. Everything else went black and white. Then I simply printed them out wallet size and cut them out. And YES, I did manage to find some snaps with me in them, and I did include those, butt-crack-hair and all.

As I was painstakingly determining optimum placement of each cherished memory, my oh-so-helpful hubby sauntered by with a snide 'Uh, you're going to trim those I hope.' Nope, I thought I'd just lay them out willy-nilly and make my 2-week paint job look like crap. Geez, MEN! LOL

I just used some watered-down school glue, foam brush and my fingers to adhere the photos. Just glob some on the monogram, smoosh the photo into it and use your fingers to moosh the excess squishing out the sides around and over the front. Once you've got a dry surface, you can either coat with another layer of the glue, or spray with poly. I chose to use some archival-quality spray poly I had lying around. I can't even remember where I got it, or what brand it was (probably because I snitched it from the parent's garage!).

Once it was all said and done, everyone decided this was one of my cooler projects. The boys fought over the leftover photos; Stanky is still convinced that the baby pic of his big brother is their cousin Bobble.

So, here's the photobomb - thanks Stanky. Not only did he bomb the photo, but the focus changed at the last second and blurred out my masterpiece!

They all decided to get in on the action. Stamped faces, kabob skewers and all.

Updated, slightly nicer photos (stuck with the cell-phone peeps), without the minions...

Now, do you remember this table from last August's Swap Meet? Yeah, I've been sanding when I feel like it, and moving it from one house to another, in the hopes of being stricken with inspiration. I think it was that awful textured tray top that stumped me. After days and days (yes, all those hours added into days!) of sanding and filling and sanding and filling and sanding and crying because it still sucked...

Well folks, inspiration struck, and she don't look like dis no mo!