Hey everyone! To keep up with all of our Christmas posts make sure to FOLLOW us on Instagram!
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We did for sure! I am always trying to think of thrifty, unique and thoughtful gifts to make my family and friends each year. I love making custom pieces that they wouldn’t receive from anyone else. This year I decided to make my niece and nephew name signs for their room. I decided that this would be our teacher gifts this year as well, only I will use their last names!
Today I am showing you the sign I made my for niece Londyn.
I found a GREAT flickr photo site on Pinterest. It is an amazing source for letter photos. There are literally hundreds of each letter. You can see that site HERE! You simply download for FREE and print from your own printer… Pretty darn cheap and easy! I found her letters and got started on the rest.
I bought 6 4×6 frames at the Dollar Tree for a buck a piece.
I removed all the plastic and glass from the frames like this…
I gave them all a coat of my very favorite…
You can get it at Home Depot.
I used Heirloom White for the frames…
Here they are drying…
While those were drying, I started on my wood.
I used a 2×10 for my sign. This is heavy and will sit alone on a table without support. If you are wanting to hang yours on a wall, you could also use a 1×10.
I paid $4.50 for an 8ft board and made 2 signs from it.
I cut a 36″ piece and painted it Sweet Pea.
While that was drying I finished up my frames. I added the glass back into each frame and also added my new FREE letter photos. Once I attached the back I gently pulled the support piece off the back of each frame. That was quite easy to do on dollar store frames 😉
Then, I added a bit of hot glue to the corners of each frame and attached them to my new pink board.
The result…
What do you think?
I am so excited to also make these for the kiddos teachers. I am planning on staining the boards and going with a neutral frame color so they can use them anywhere.
If you are making a longer name, I would suggest going with 3×5 frames and using a 2×6 or a 2×8 as your board.
And now let’s do the math… I paid $6 for the frames, $2.50 per sign for the wood, and the pictures were free. That’s about $10 a sign if you count the spray paint… My kind of gift!
Thanks so much for stopping by! Let me know if you have any questions!
~Whitney
I made these! I gave them as Christmas gifts and my family loved them. You can see them on my FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=273736012682549&set=a.110870812302404.9316.110657852323700&type=1&theater¬if_t=like
Thank you so much for the great idea!
Your Letter Photo Art is AWESOME! I’m excited to blog with you in 2012!!! I’m hosting a party and would LOVE for you to link up!!! XO, Aimee
Overflowing with Creativity
I made this for Christmas…with a black board on the back…and I loved it!! I made 2 of them…thanks so much for a great tutorial! 🙂
I gave you a shout-out here: http://christinasadventures.com/2011/12/what-i-made-gave-for-christmas.html
Love this! I made one for each of my coworkers and they LOVED them!! Thanks for sharing your creation and ideas! I used the free program GIMP to edit them down to 4×6 pictures and it worked out perfectly! Thanks again for posting!
What a great idea! The same basic project could be altered so many different ways depending on the images used and the colors. I love it!
This is adorable! I have been having a hard time finding a frame to fit 6 4×6 pictures. This is the perfect solution!
Ok, maybe I am just not getting this but do I need a Flickr account in order to download the photos? Do I need a photo editing program to be able to crop and size the pics once I choose them? Also, is there anything else I need to know so that I can begin to make these awesome gifts? I tried right clicking on a photo but it gave me no options such as saving or printing. Thanks for any help.
How do I print the letters so that I may frame them? Maybe I am missing something, but I can’t seem to get them printed. Thanks
This is amazing! How do you download the photos from flickr for free??
Where do I find the free photos to download?
I chose some letters and sent them to be printed. When I picked them up, the letter was cropped. So, I came back to the site and turned them because I wanted them to be like they are in your picture. However, when I sent them to the site I wanted to print them for me to pick them up, it looked like they were going to be cropped again and the whole letter would not be showing. Any ideas? Yours looks perfect!!! I really want to do this for Christmas.
Love the work! Please share the link for letters. Thanks so much.
What a wonderful idea! I’m thinking about making one of these for my living room. Thanks for the inspiration!
I have a questin can i put these letter on scrapbook paper? or kodak paper? can you change the size? I am so lovin this site!!!
What type of wood do I ask for when I go to home depot and get it? I am only doing a 3 letter name. 🙂
They are called 2×10 and they are pine. You can have them cut it there for you 🙂