Thrifty Gift Idea (Mother's Day/Visiting Teaching)

I received this plaque for my anniversary a few years ago. I decided to make 5x7 versions for my monthly visiting teaching handout as it's two of my girls' birthdays this month and the third gal is a mom and I will be seeing her right before mom's day- I thought the temple that is meaningful to each of them would be a perfect gift.

I started with a piece of scrap alder from Home Depot that costs me $1.01-yeah seriously! I had a pic of my happy face but switched phones and you'll just have to imagine it.

I had the guy there cut the scrap into 8 5x7 pieces. The sanded the crap out of it with 80 grit and then 220. It took the entire Nate Berkus show AND an episode of Dancing with the Stars to sand it to my liking.

 
Make LASER copies of whichever photo you want to use (inkjet prints will run). When I was looking for the free temple pics online I found that someone had done this idea before. If you go to The Idea Door you can find some variations of this as well as TONS of temple pdf files. I sized them down to 4x6 and put two to a page so it would cost less-it's 59 cents a page for color copies at Kinkos.

Then I did two coats of black craft paint. After it's super dry, you'll apply either glossy or matte modge podge (for paper) to the wood surface and then to the back of the picture- starting in the middle and working towards the edges.

The wood should look almost dry when you apply the picture to it. You'll want to press it onto the wood for 1-2 minutes and make sure no bubbles form.

 After at least 15 minutes you can do a second modge podge coat on top of the pic, this is where I had to be careful with the bubbling. Keep pressing down working from the center towards the edges- there are tools to do this, but fingers work fine.

Let the boards dry overnight, in the morning the modge podge may still feel tacky to the touch. You may then use a clear acrylic finish spray paint which fix that and make it look more professional.

Mesa, AZ Temple

Salt Lake City Temple

Laie Hawaii Temple

Although I chose a religious picture of the LDS temple because I wanted the message to be family oriented, i.e. "Families are Forever"-
you COULD do this with any print you want, a family photo or whatever.

You could also layer cute card stock or scrap book paper under the chosen picture.

For Z's and my moms we'll buy a stand to give as  part of the gift.
For the other women I'll just wrap a bow around it and call it good.



Thanks for dropping by!

- Becca -

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