Photo Art

I found these pictures of this little boy on a beach the other day with I was reading a post on my blog....I justlove them and decided to make some of my daughter and her boyfriend on the beachlast summer for her to hang in her dorm room at college this fall!!  These are so adorable!!  I got a new fancy schmancy camera (that I have NO idea how to work). I just take about a ZILLION pictures, and hope to get 1 good one. Then I edited them with Picnik, I made them black & white and then painted the blue back into the pictures, easier than it sounds and FREE! Gotta love FREE! I saw the quote "sandy toes & salty kisses" and just fell inlove with it!!  I am goping to add those to Krista's pics too!! Then I had them printed as 8 x 10's (at walgreens), that takes about an hour (good for me, along with being cheap, I also have ZERO patience).

The original post was done using these signs she had and they were about 14 x 10 (ish), she got her hubby to cut them down to 8 x 10 for me, then I painted them.  I will probably just get my hubby to cut me some from his wood scraps!  They weren't quite 10" long, so I tried to trim my pictures to fit.  Then

I mod podged my pictures onto the painted boards. I could have added a layer of mod podge over that and been done, but while buying more mod podge I found "brushstroke" mod podge...WHAT? I was a little nervous about using it, figuring I would totally mess them up, but I really liked the idea of being able to add a little more texture & dimension. I practiced on an old picture first, and it was as easy as the directions said. So off I went to add "brushstrokes" to my pictures.

The directions say to let dry about 24 hours, so I brushed on my vertical strokes one night, and my horizontal strokes the next night. It was REALLY hard to get a picture of the brushstroke effect, but it actually makes these look as if they are canvas! I'm really in love with the brushstroke mod podge!

Anyway, after drying FOR-EVER, they are finally done! I love, love, LOVE the way they turned out! I can't wait for the living room to be painted so I can hang them up!