So, I was browsing through that ever so addictive website Pinterest.com and I came across this really cool idea for turning photos into wall art at a ridiculously low cost. Right away I got excited and wanted to try it out. I knew exactly which photo I wanted to use and what size I wanted it to be. I found this photo of my son and daughter to be so sweet and almost etheral looking that it had to be this one.
I downloaded a copy of it on to a memory card and took it to Staples. When I got to the counter I very nicely asked the girl for an engineering print 24X36. She says okay and shoves the memory card into the slot and when the contents loaded she looked up at me and said, “These are pictures.” I nodded, thinking guess what genius? They’re in jpg format too. Instead I said, “yes I know. It’s for a project”
She must have some crafter DNA in her somewhere because after that the chip she had on her shoulder and the boredom she carried in her step disappeared and we started chit-chatting about how I was going to Mod Podge this engineering print to a piece of foamboard and hang it up on the wall. She expressed an interest in Pinterest (lol!) and it was a generally pleasant visit.
Anyway, I get the print home, I have the foamboard and a fresh jar of Mod Podge. What I didn’t have was time so it had to wait about a week or so before I could get to it. When I did get back to this project I had been up all night because my brain couldn’t get out of work mode. I think I did about 50 projects in my head that night. At 5:30 a.m. I gave up and got out of bed. Since I was up so early I took the opportunity to Mod Podge my print.
I got all my supplies ready, the foam brushes, mod podge, foamboard, print and ribbon for edge decorating. The instructions from the website seemed pretty simple except that I must have been delirious from lack of sleep because I missed the part about using spray adhesive to glue down your print first and THEN mod podge over the top. What did I do, in my zombie-like state? I tried to mod podge the back of the print to the foamboard and then mod podge the front too so that it was soaked in mod podge. Not a good idea. My paper was so thin and so soaked that trying to work out the air bubbles caused tearing and the photo was disappearing.
I decided to let it be and dry while I went to work and hopefully if all went well it would be just fine that evening. Uh, no it wasn’t. Without some kind of weight being on the foamboard to keep it flat it curled up and dried that way; cracked and curled. Oh, and it’s f’n huge. When I tried to see if I could flatten it, it cracked on me. You can see it curl in the photo.
This is a closer look at the wrinkles in the paper. Clearly I used way too much Mod Podge for this flimsy paper. I was so disappointed in how this turned out I haven’t even trimmed the foamboard. And ignore the date because I didn’t set the date on the camera. I took the photos today, just now not in 2007. 🙂
I’ll have to see if I can do anything with it but so far it looks dark and unusable. A Mod Podge mess. This is one project that goes back to the drawing board before a second attempt.
