Mom's Birthday and a Photo Transfer Tutorial

We went to Cincinnati for Mom's __st birthday

This Kroger supermarket cupcake included the candle and even balloons! Yea Kroger!

We took a few pictures, then 

Don, Mom, me & Dan; Ashleigh & Dan

ate at Fridays, one of the few places that was open on Labor Day (TGIF!). We celebrated with the Blues Brothers.

Then Mom had her cupcake.

Ashleigh made Mom a transfer photo picture of the two of them at our house before we left for Cincinnati. I have been wanting to learn how to transfer photos and had never seen this technique before. She allowed me to take pictures so I could show you too. Here is where she got her directions. 

1. First, she printed off a photo with a laser printer (not inkjet) on plain copy paper. She said to use a photo with good resolution, one you can blow up that will not get so pixelated. 2. Then she covered the photo with packing tape. She barely let the edges of the tape touch each other to prevent bubbles. 3. She used a credit card to get rid of any bubbles and to make sure the tape adhered well to the picture. 4. She cut around the heads for definition and to let the blue background show. (She painted an 8x10 canvas with blue acrylic paint before she arrived at our home. Mom's favorite color is blue.) 

5. She placed the taped photo on the canvas to see how it would fit. She wanted the blue edges to show all around. 6. Then she soaked it in warm water for at least 5 minutes. 7. She placed the photo frontside down onto waxed paper 8. and rubbed the copy paper off of the tape. She said to make sure all of the paper is removed. The tape can be placed back into the water if needed, but be careful to not rub too much because the image could come off. 

And here is the taped photo transfer. It has a transparent quality. As you can see, there was still some paper she needed to rub off at the bottom. 

She used Mod Podge to adhere it to the canvas

and inserted it into a black frame. When I took this photo, the Mod Podge hadn't dried yet. I put a black frame around it via PicMonkey to give you an idea of the end result. The picture dried in the car on our two hour drive to Cincinnati.

This picture was taken ten years ago.

Now and then...

September 2nd is such a special day of the year. It's Mom's birthday, it's the start of the new school year, and it's the beginning of the change of the season from summer to fall. It's a good reason to celebrate! Hope you enjoyed your birthday, Mom.