Penny Years

For whatever reason I got this idea in my head to do something with pennies for my little brother's birthday. I think you can come up with plenty to do with pennies. This was my idea!

Where I got the idea: Myself

Time: A few days to find the pennies, but the actual project took 45 minutes

Shopping List:
Penny from every year
Krazy Glue
Flat Frame
Colored Paper
Black Fine Point Sharpie

Instructions:
1. Prep: Finding a penny for every year was pretty easy. Then again he was born in 1989. I actually think if you had a few weeks you could do this for numerous ages. I thought about doing one for special occasions - years our parents born, year he was born, year people met, year graduated college...I think you can end up doing a lot of creative things with it.  

2. Glue: Arrange the pennies in chronological order around the frame. This is important, because Krazy Glue dries those suckers on there fast & tight. I messed up the corner of the frame. I didn't have enough pennies to cover the entire frame (I used 5x7). Fortunately, I spaced them out and said there was room for two more for his 24th & 25th birthdays! :) Go Me!

3. Frame: I thought it was clever to use the phrase: "Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you'll have good luck!" I changed the day to year (since I used a penny for each year...). I thought printing it would be a little too impersonal, so I tried freehand calligraphy  my best pretty cursive (which isn't THAT great...). I practiced about 4 times before getting my spacing just right..and it still looks just "eh".

All in all, I think he really liked it. He thought it was nice, and then realized it was a penny from each year he's been alive. I got him two other things as well, but I thought this was nice & sentimental and didn't cost really anything to do!

Birthday Photo Collage

Busy weekend!

So the first project was a present for my father-in-law's 65th birthday. A friend of mine made the number 4 with pictures of her son for his 4th birthday. It was really cute. I wasn't sure putting a big 65 was a great idea, so we were going to spell out his name or one of his "phrases." We ended up just making a giant collage.

Who I got the idea from: Friend 

Time: 4 hours

Shopping List:

Science Poster Board - $4

At least 200 (probably closer to 250) pictures - $25 (if you do them mail in rather than 1 hour)

Glue or Rubber Cement - $3 (I think that's how much it cost? I had some on hand)

A few pieces of construction paper (optional)

Popsicle sticks (optional)

Tape (optional)

A few years ago I had scanned all of their pictures from baby pictures to a few years ago, so I had a lot to work with. I'll say this...plan ahead...printing 300 pictures at one-hour photo is double the cost of site-to-store or home delivery. Better yet, Snapfish & Shutterfly generally have sales for prints. My sister-in-law purchased a poster board and we started from there. We probably used at least 200 of the pictures. It definitely took longer than we thought.

You think oh we can just slap a whole lot of pictures for the background & clip over them. Nope...doesn't work that way!

Instructions:

1. Prep: So we sorted the pictures into "background" and "cut out," although those piles became merged.

2. Layout: We originally were going to lay out a background then put additional pictures on. This didn't work as we had hoped, so we started in a corner and worked our way out. This let us vary the sizes and shapes so it didn't look like several pictures all in a line. If you need to adjust, you have plenty of time since the glue stick/rubber cement doesn't dry immediately.

3. Letters: We cut out construction paper & taped it to the back to say "Happy Ron." It's a family thing not to say Happy Birthday (my Mother-in-law didn't have enough room on a cheesecake she made me one year so she wrote Happy Lindsay...so it stuck." If you are going to tape things to the back, I suggest getting Popsicle sticks to hold them up.

My father-in-law absolutely loved it! I will make one other recommendation: don't just cut out the heads of the person. They tend to look weird.