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Thursday, April 30, 2015

DIY Personalized Picture Frames for a First Birthday


Good morning!  It's the last day of April, which means it's also the last post relating to my little guys' first birthday.  I've spent the entire month sharing all sorts of things that I created to help celebrate their big day.  Today, I want to share the personalized picture frames I made for their first birthday.

If you're like me, you've seen those custom chalkboards that have been personalized to describe all of the "firsts and favorites" that occur in your child's first year.  I've seen them all over Pinterest and discovered they can be custom ordered from some Etsy shops for a pretty penny.  I would make my own before I'd pay $50+ for one.  The other issue I had with the chalkboards is that they are rather large in size.  If I'm going to make one, I want to display it for more than just a birthday party, and I didn't really have a place in the house to permanently display something that large.


While I'm not too fond of the price tag, I really do love the idea of the personalized chalk boards.  I love that they visualize special moments of the first year, along with other things that capture the individual personality of the child.  I particularly loved this idea, because my little guys are twins.  My little guys may be twins, but they each have their own individual personalities that are completely different from one another!  Since I loved the idea so much, I decided that I would do my own version of the personalized chalkboards.  Rather than a big board, I was going to turn small picture frames into chalkboards instead!

To do this, I bought two wood picture frames from Hobby Lobby, found in the wood craft section for $4.99 a piece.  I had chalkboard paint leftover from a previous project, which is what I chose to paint the frames with.  Once the frames dried, I used a white paint marker with a fine tip to write a description of each boy on the picture frames.  Lastly, I put a picture of each boy in their frame and displayed it at their party.  After the party, I displayed the frames in their bedroom.  


The only issue I ran into with this project was that at times my paint marker had an issue with the flow of the paint.  It could be because I used a marker I already had, and the marker had not been used in a few months.  I'm not sure exactly what happened with the marker, but it did make the finished results look a little sloppy on my frames.

The frames may have not have turned out exactly like I wanted them to, but they were still good enough to display.  I chose to put the following things on each boys' picture frame:
  • Name
  • I AM ONE
  • I Love My ____.
  • I am __(personality description)__.
  • I love to _____.
  • I can __(walk, dance, give high fives, say Mama, etc.)_.
  • Favorite Food
  • Favorite Toy
  • Weight
  • Length
And that's it!  I hope you enjoyed this project and all of the other ones I shared this month, as I celebrated the fact that I have two healthy one year olds to keep me busy each day!




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