Tag Archives: genealogy

Look – my newest Design Team project for crescendoh.com!  If you have a pile of precious family photos that are languishing in a box or drawer, this Vintage Snapshot Ornament project is for you.  These ornaments can be used in many different ways, and are easy to make.

Consider hanging them on a Christmas tree, a found wooden branch, or around the necks of vintage glass bottles.  They’d make unique tags, and could even be hung from the “branches” of a family tree you paint on the wall!  This project may be particularly appealing to scrapbookers and family historians, and a set of these ornaments would make a lovely gift.

Directions

Begin by printing or copying the black and white images you’d like to use.  I printed scans of old family photos onto regular copy paper using my home printer.  Crop the images into a square shape.  My finished ornaments vary slightly in size, but are 2 ¼” x 2 ¼” on average.  Glue the cropped image onto a thin piece of chipboard or a thick piece of cardstock that you’ve trimmed to the same size as the photo, using a glue stick to adhere the two pieces.  (I used cardboard from a Panera bagel box!)

Slide black photo corners onto each corner of your image – the front should lay on top of the image, and the back should lie on top of the chipboard/cardstock piece you attached to the photo.  Affix the back piece of each photo corner to the chipboard/cardstock with glue or a glue dot to ensure they don’t shift or fall off.

Trim a piece of white cardstock to the same size as your photo.  Stamp the cardstock with a frame image from the Little Miss Mason stamp set, choosing a frame of appropriate size and shape.  Use an alphabet letter stamp to add information about the photo inside the frame, like the person’s name, date, or the occasion.  You can also write the information in, if you’d like.  Set this stamped piece aside.

To make the hanger, attach the two ends of a piece of narrow black ribbon to the back of the photo/chipboard piece, using double stick tape.  The ribbon should be centered, and should extend down at least ½” from the top edge.

Finish the ornament by attaching the stamped piece of cardstock to the beribboned photo piece.  The back of the photo piece should be attached to the back of the stamped cardstock, sandwiching the ribbon in between.

Please note: If you’re using digital copies of black and white/sepia photos and you have photo editing software like Photoshop, your images will look more uniform if you desaturate the images before printing them.  If you copy paper photos, you’ll get better results if you color copy them, though they’re black and white.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek at my newest DIY project.  Do you have some precious family photos you’d like to make into snapshot ornaments? If so, please let me know if you have any questions…

Warm regards,
Melody

p.s. Have you entered my newest GIVEAWAY yet?  I’ll announce two winners on Tuesday, so enter today!