The Absolute Favorite Thing I Have Made! Name and Est. Date Wall Art

Have you seen on other blogs people using vinyl lettering to spell their last name and the year they were married, for example Smith est. 2001?  I love these! I had dreamed about eventually doing this in our front entrance but could never find a place with the vinyl lettering I liked. So when my sister sent me Under the Table and Dreaming's  and My Three Monsters idea for this....I literally screamed with joy.  You have to see what they have done!

I love Stephanie Lynn's and Amy's version but I have a last name with only two letters! I could not use the layout  they designed because my last name just got lost.  After hours of playing with it I came up with the most beautiful, in my opinion, design! I love, love, love this!!!

Method:

• I used Microsoft Office Publisher to design this.  It works best if you know the frame you want to use because you make the image custom to that size.
• I located the frame I wanted at Ikea. I love square frames and was overjoyed when I realized the design I wanted would work beautifully square.
• If using Office Publisher, select 'Blank page', 'Create Custom Page Size' and then enter the size the photo needs to be. Once the blank page is opened, select the tab on the top 'Arrange'. In the pull down select 'Layout guides'. This allows you to make as many rows and columns as you will need and it creates a grid for you to fit the images into. I used a 4x4 grid with margin guides of 1.27cm (sorry for the cm I am in Canada). Then select the 'Grid Guides' tab and I used 0.25 cm spacing between the rows and columns. If you DO NOT want the white spaces in between, make this 0 . I found the space made the images pop a little more but everyone is different.
• Go to this wonderful site by Leo Reynolds and find the letters and numbers you like. This is a hard step!  I spent hours changing the images over and over again. 
• What is amazing with Office Publisher is when you have the image you like open, on Leo Reynolds page, you can literally drag it from the website right into Publisher without having to save it first. This is a lot faster!
• Once you are happy with the design, save the image as a high resolution JPEG (to do this in Publisher follow theses steps: 'Save As', 'Save as type', 'JPEG', 'Change...' (Resolution), 'High quality printing or commercial printing (300dpi)') . 
• Then upload the JPEG to where ever you print photos. 

(UPDATE: I have been getting questions stating the drag and drop method isn't working for them or the images are inserting blurry. Make sure you open the letter/number fully before saving or inserting it.  When you are looking at the page of 100 or so small images, click on the image you like to make it larger, then right click on the image and select 'View Medium 640' or bigger. Once the new image opens you can drag and drop from this screen ..but if that doesn't work, right click on it again and select 'save image as'. Save the letter/number to a place on your computer where you can find it. Open the Publisher file and 'insert', 'picture', 'from file'. Find the letter/number on your computer and select it. Adjust the image size to fit.)
 
I have made these as gift for friends, family and teachers.  The printing cost is very minimal (for example, the 12x12 inch square I did cost me $2.50 at Costco) and I purchased many of the frames at Ikea or thrift stores (spray painted them). So for those of you looking for Christmas ideas, anniversary gifts,etc etc. keep this in mind as it is a great gift for a low, low, low price.

Here are some examples of the gifts I have made:

 

 

Thank you Stephanie Lynn and Amy for this! Let me know what you think of my designs.

Stephanie

UPDATE: I used this same technique to create an amazing custom baby announcement that I absolutely love. Here is what the end result looked like. 

What do you think? If you want more info, click here to see the instructions and more photos.