Mother's Day Picture (Craft) Tutorial

Some of y'all have asked about the process involved in making the Mother's Day picture collage that I posted about awhile back and finally, I have found a few moments to share how to do one for yourself!



First of all, you need your picture(s).

For my pictures, I set my camera to an aperture of 1.8 and my focus was on the child's hand. Have your child hold out their hand toward you as if they are holding a bunch of flowers to hand to you - then put your camera's focus point on the outstretched hand. Done correctly, the child will "blur" and create a 3D effect in the picture. If the child is too blurry, adjust your aperture until you are satisfied with your result.

After you have your picture, the rest is pretty easy. For mine, I had 4 children to place in a frame and decided to create a collage w/4 "openings" or "windows" and therefore needed a fairly good size overall to make sure I could see each of the children well enough - my frame is 8x20. Mpix does not print that size however so I had a 10x20 printed after I enlarged my picture's canvas size in photoshop and then trimmed the excess border when I received the print (thanks to my neice Angela for the suggestion of the 10x20 and trimming the excess - I was trying to make a lot more work for myself and she had the answer I needed).

Assemble your supplies - for a single child, a 5x7 or 8x10 would work great. (you will probably not need all of these items unless you are in a similar situation as mine!) (not pictured: wire cutters to cut off appropriate amount of artificial flowers)



Here's how I did mine:

Trim off excess border of print.



Cut slit in the picture on top of the child's fist and below as well if you want the stem to come through underneath as well.



Insert flowers and reassemble frame WITHOUT the glass.



Discard glass....I currently have 3 8x20 pieces in a box - any ideas on what to do w/them?

Hang on wall and enjoy your creation!