Family Tree

Genealogy work is something that lots of people are doing these days. It’s really neat to find out who you are through your relatives and it’s important to make sure no one’s forgotten through time. It is something that’s great to do with family members, too, so for the extra idea, might I suggest spending time with your giftee and doing some research about their family tree.

Even if you don’t know your family tree very far back, this gift is great for the immediate family in your life. If you don’t have a big family, include several pictures of each member, friends or places that are special to you and yours.

Stores like Hallmark have little kits that have the picture frames and wire tree stands ready to go and all you have to do is print off the pictures and insert them into the frames. You use wallet-sized images and it's a very regal way to present family photos.

I thought long and hard about what kind of tree to make for this project because I wanted to make those little trees....I still haven’t come up with anything that doesn't involve a soldering iron or bandsaw. But then when I was looking at the Christmas tree I thought, “How neat would it be to have ornaments for your tree with different portraits of your family members?”

So today’s project is a picture frame ornament to put family photos in.

Picture Frame:

Materials and Supplies:

~ Sturdy cardboard or matboard

~ Box cutter or Xacto knife

~ Felt or thin quilting batting

~ Material

~ Scissors

~ Glue

~ Ruler

~ Tape

~ Photographs

Directions:

1. Measure and cut the cardboard pieces. There’s a front and back to the frame so there should be two pieces that are the same size—say 5” by 5”—and one of those should have a hole cut out of it. If you want a circle, trace around a glass. If you’re using a 4 x 6 photo, don’t cut the hole bigger than 3.75” x 5.75” (of course, if your frame is on 5” x 5”, your measurements will be smaller!). It’s a good rule to leave about an inch of frame around the picture so the hole will be about 3” x 3”.

2. Cut batting or felt to the size of the front frame, cutting out the hole just the same. Use a dot of glue in a few places to keep it in place.

3. Lay a piece of fabric right side down on the table. Make sure it’s bigger than the frame on all sides, about one inch all around is good. Place the frame batting side down on the material. Trace all around the outside edge and around the frame opening.

4. Cut the aperture out of the fabric. Make sure you leave about an inch of material so that you can tuck the material back around the frame, make it nice and pretty.

5. Glue the material onto the frame. Place it back within the guidelines and carefully pull the material snug as you go.

6. Glue material onto the back piece of matboard. Follow the same process of laying the material right side down on the table, place the board on top of it and glue the edges to the board.

7. Tape the photograph to the front piece of matboard so you know it’s secure and won’t go anywhere.

8. Glue the back board to the front board. Don't forget to glue in a piece of ribbon to hang it from!

Extra idea?

If you’re using photographs of relatives that have amazing stories, create a companion book to go with the ornaments that you can read for years to come.