Family Photo Project

Busy moms out there...how about this for an enticing project? Invest just a few hours with some of your most treasured photos and create a keepsake that can be enjoyed by your family and friends year round!
HOW IT BEGAN...perhaps like many of you time-challenged moms, I have boxes of photos that date back to the turn of the century that continue to stay unorganized in a pile, in a box, in a closet. My mother-in-law has also entrusted us with same for my husband's side of the family.
THE IDEA...not really anything new, but I was inspired by the dramatic black and white photo wall displays in catalogs like Pottery Barn - do you know what I mean? Simple, elegant black frames that encase a series of photos, that are often thematic or tell a story. I realized I had some wonderful, multi-generational photos from my family and my husband's where I could create some side by side "family trees" if you will. I found some very nice black frames at a local retailer that had precut matting for a number of photos, which meant I would need to resize some of the photos to fit into these frames.

THE PROJECT....so, I narrowed down the photos I wanted to use for each family tree, scanned each one with my All-in-One printer/scanner/fax/copier, and for those that were in color, I converted those to black in white - you can do this with photo editing software, which often comes with your All-in-One, and/or at time of printing. And also at the time of printing, I resized each photo to fit into the pre-cut matte size.For those more unusual dimensions, I could simply enter in the size and my All-in-One would print accordingly. To be sure I got the best quality possible, I used high quality photo paper and used ink that is meant for black and white photography. You just need to swap it out of your printer when you print. Once I got into a rhythm, the project went very fast - have to admit my biggest time commitments were trying to narrow down which photos to feature.

THE RESULT? Two side by side family "galleries" that I proudly display in my hallway.