The menfolk are off texturing and painting at the new house, and so I'm home alone on a Saturday morning...watching a three year old whose love language is Elmer's glue. All the kid wants to do is cut (with big kid scissors) and paste (with Elmer's).

This isn't my favorite kiddo activity. It's kind of adorable, but it also requires near constant supervision. It does. At least with my three year old. I left him alone with his Elmer's the other day for five minutes and I came back to find him attempting to glue his feet to the floor. I have a pretty high tolerance for mayhem if it guarantees some minutos alone with instagram in the bathroom, but even I draw the line somewhere.

So yesterday when I hauled out our kiddo craft box and set him to slicing and sticking and shuffled through the ever growing pile of toddler artwork, I remembered something that as a mother it would serve me well to remember more often: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

And truth be told, I'm a sucker for crafting so Jake comes by it honestly.

I started with a stack of Jake's artwork, and began some clipping and some Mod Podging and some Eric Carle channeling.

 And pretty soon, voila.

   

Here they are, chock full of sentimentality and ready for me to write some words on the back and send them off to a grandmother or two.

Happy Saturday Crafting!

Photo to Wood Image Transfer

One of the first things I ever pinned was an image to wood transfer. I used this tutorial here. I have since done lots of image transfers - usually I break it out for the tighter Christmases. I think it's a pretty magical DIY.

And the magic is all in the Liquitex Gel Medium which you can get from Amazon or Michael's. The Gel Medium lifts the link off of a printed piece of paper and adheres it to another surface.

MATERIALS

Liquitex Gel Medium

Mod Podge

Image Print Out (flipped)

Piece of Wood or Plywood

1. Sand and clean your wooden surface. Or get your husband to do it.

2. Print your image with a laser jet printer. But before you print it out, flip it horizontally (you can do this with Mac's Preview App so you don't need any fancy software.) Use the cheapest flimsiest paper available. I print mine out at FedEx and I make two copies just in case I botch the first one.

Trim off excess paper.

2. Cover your image with gel medium. Or cover the wood surface with gel medium. Or do both.

3. Press the paper - image side down - onto your wooden surface and smooth out any bubbles in the gel. I use a credit card to help with this. Let it dry completely. I usually just leave it for a night and come back.

4. Once the gel medium is totally dry, moisten the paper with a washcloth. Make sure it's totally soaked and then begin to rub off the paper. This is the most time consuming part. 

Do it slowly and don't press too hard or you might lose patches of ink.

I recommend working on the key parts of the image (faces?) first. You will almost definitely lose flecks of ink during the process. That's fine and is even kind of charming - but sometimes you accidentally los a nose or something and it's just not worth finishing. When this happens to me, I just let the paper dry back out, grab some sandpaper, and start over from the beginning.

The paper comes off in layers. You might have to do this step in two or three shifts because as the water dries you will better be able to see lingering fibers of the paper.

Rewet it and carry on.

5. Once you've removed all the paper and it's dry, cover it with Mod Podge. Maybe give it a couple coats.

And you're done.

Consider taking a picture of it in another room next to a succulent.

I'll eventually update this post with more images when I finish the other two pieces I was working on - I had to scrap one because I'm a dummy and the horizon was at a 30 degree angle. I had to scrap the other because I lost some ink and nobody likes a cyclops bride.

Good luck with your image transfers, and I'm happy to help you troubleshoot!