Owens Corning

Enjoy Your Vacation All Year Long

Many of your best photographs can be made into distinctive and personal gifts for holiday giving or for decorating your home. This is a good way to bring your vacation experience home with you to enjoy year 'round.

Preserving A Day At The Beach
If you plan a trip to the beach, collect a variety of shells to be used for framing the pictures you take while there. Center and mount your vacation photo on a piece of heavy cardboard that's 1-in. larger all around than the photograph. Arrange the seashells around the border, allowing some of the shells to overlap the edges of the picture. Use white glue or a hot glue gun (sold in five and dime or craft shops) to apply each shell. Overlap them so they are clustered to create a nice frame. Let dry thoroughly, then attach a tab to the back for hanging.

Colorful Photos
Plan to photograph your children dressed in their most colorful T-shirts. Then use colored pencils to make a frame for the picture. Use a craft knife to cut the pencils to the size of each side of the photograph. Arrange 2 or 3 pencils around the picture and hold in place temporarily with tape. Buy a mat to fit the exact size of the outside dimension around the "pencil frame".

Reposition the pencils around the mat background and glue each one in place. Let dry before placing the whole thing over the photograph. Use masking tape to attach the picture to the back of the framed mat, then attach a hanging tab to the back as well.

Map It Out
If you will be vacationing at an historic or landmark area, plan to take photographs of the family at different recognizable spots. Then be sure to save a map of the town. When your pictures are developed you can combine the two for a memorable keepsake. This is a project the whole family will enjoy.

Match the photos to the areas in which the pictures were taken. Crop each photograph so it fits on various sections of the map. Glue in position. When all the photos are in place, frame and hang in an area where your vacation can be relived again and again.

Nature Scene
Take a series of photographs of flowers or natural vegetation indigenous to the area. Or find houses with beautiful plantings in window boxes or small gardens and mount the best photograph on top of a pretty box to hold the other pictures.

Theme Photos
Pick a theme, such as historic houses or landmark areas and create a series that can be enlarged for framing. If you've taken slides, have color copies made from these for an interesting and different approach to framed photos. You'll be surprised at how good these copies can be. If there's a local art gallery in the vacation area, stop by for some inspirational ideas.

Copyright Leslie Linsley, author
Reprinted with permission, HouseNet, Inc.

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