Today we are making this sweet frame together.

I love framed photos of my family, but I like fun frames. So I try to jazz them up a little myself.

This quote that we are using again today is so fitting for my family. My Dad has lived in Indiana, USA for over 20 years now. We are a very close family so our yearly get togethers are really important to us. He comes over every summer for 10 days. My sister and her family and my brother all come to us and all 11 of us stay at our home for the time. We are up early and go to bed late every day and try and cram as much time together as we can. My children say it’s their favourite time of year. We have so much fun altogether.

We don’t do many big trips together, but wherever we go we have fun and laugh so much. As the quote says ”It’s not where you go. It’s who you travel with”. This is so true. We took this group selfie during one of our trips last summer. We wandered along the canal and stopped at the ruins of Odiham Castle. This is my favourite photo from the whole of the summer. It isn’t perfect, but it brings back all the happy memories instantly. So I’ve decided that this photo needs to be framed. I’ve scrapbooked it, but now it lives in my scrapbook album. I want it out on display.

I started by turning the not so perfect photo in to a polaroid. You can do this for free on Picmonkey.com.  I love this website and use it on my photos alot. You can save them to your pc then and print them off yourself. I have a plain white frame. Nothing fancy. Just £2 from Wilkinsons. An old map and a peg and the quote from this months kit- Bon Voyage.

I have taken a road map and chosen the Oxford page, it’s where my family are from, but any map would do as the project is travel themed. Like I’ve said before, I have a thing for maps and tend to pick them up a lot. This particular large book is from The Works, for just £1.99.

I’ve also been using our old Atlas lately as it’s now out of date.

Charity shops are a great place to pick up maps very cheaply. This old Atlas is my favourite. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found it. I had been searching for an old map of the US and saw this and bought it for £3. I framed the US map and have been using this old Atlas for other projects. I then recently saw the exact book on Ebay for £150. It’s dated 1900. I’ve stopped cutting it up now and just treasure it instead.

I start by cutting my map. As I want a particular piece, I lay the glass from the frame over where I want to cut. This way I can see exactly the piece I want to use. I take the pencil from the kit and draw around and cut out.

The piece of map then gets stuck on the back of them frame. Make sure you stick the correct side so that the piece facing out is the piece you want to be seen. The glass goes in the recycle bin, We don’t need that anymore.

The frame can now be put back together again.

I stuck the peg to the top of the frame with a little pva glue and that holds my photo in place now. The other good thing about this frame is that you can change the photos from time to time if you wish.

I cut the quote up in to small sections and stuck them on to the frame with the pva glue. I felt that the frame needed something else, so I took a small heart punch and punched out from the map where we live as this is where we spend all our time together when Dad visits.

I’m so happy with this project. It would also make a really nice gift.

I hope you like this idea too. I might just have to make another now and send to my Dad in the States. I think it makes a great Fathers Day gift.

Lisa x