Family Trees

There was one gift that I made this year that I was the most excited to give.  Our last Christmas party was last night and the last of these gifts was given so I feel safe in posting about it without ruining the surprise for anyone now.

I was SO very glad when Sutton Grace shared how she made some beautiful Family Trees.  It would make the perfect Christmas present for my parents, who are incredibly difficult to shop for.  I knew I'd love one as well as my brother, my sister, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and my good friend.  Here's her family trees - such beautiful pieces of art!

Sutton Grace provided templates to make these beautiful family trees out of scrapbook paper.  I was not looking forward to cutting out hundreds of leaves but knew the effort would be well worth it.  Imagine how silly I felt when after looking as scrapbook papers I thought "I wish I could just do this digitally, I have so many cute papers that would be perfect for this"  DUH!!!  I CAN and I did.  Once I got the template made for each tree it was fairly simple to just insert the right names.  I say fairly because apparently there is a lot of geneology to be done for both my family and my husband's so I spent a lot of time trying to find missing names.

Here's what each tree looked like before I got all the names entered in.  I was so excited to get them printed I think I skipped into Costco to pick them up!

I thought the hard part was done, boy was I wrong!  We had the hardest time finding frames that were the right size for this project, 20x24.  I found one frame in all the local craft & home decor stores in my area.  It wasn't cheep and it wasn't what I pictured so... we made our own.  I'm so grateful for my husband and his willingness to help with all my crazy projects.  James figured out how to make the frames sturdy and beautiful!  He used crown molding, table saws, drills, and several other items.  I would attempt to explain in more detail how he accomplished this but I'm afraid it would be lacking.  So I'll just say "He's my hero" and leave it at that  :-)

We've made five frames so far.  Mine is still undone since the one's that were Christmas gifts took precedence.  We also used a purchased frame for one because it needed a lot of names filled in still.  I mounted each poster with mod podge and sealed it with a layer of mod podge applied with a texturized brush.  So, no need for glass!

(I really need to figure out how to get my daughter's drink dribbles off of brick!!!  YUCK!)

We have a few more to make.  My grandparents, my husband's grandparents and other family members have asked for some.  We're going to be busy little bees with all these pictures for a while.