Father's Day Gift for Grandpas

I found an idea online to create a "picture" using pictures of all the grandkids holding letters to spell out the word "GRANDPA" and put them together to look like a picture frame. You have to look at the picture (above) or it doesn't make sense. I'll also break the steps down for you.

SUPPLIES

• Unfinished wooden plaque (approx. 15x5")
• Wood stain (color of your choice, I used walnut)
• Black paint
• Foam paint brush
• 9x12" canvas
• Full page letters (1/page) spelling GRANDPA
• Rub-on sayings
• 12x2" strip of black craft paper
• 1.5" square pictures of grandkids
• Mod Podge

Step-by-Step Directions

• I started with an unfinished wooden plaque I purchased from Michael's and stained the front a walnut color with wood stain. 
• I then painted the edges in black (well, my hubby did - it's his father after all, right?).
• Print out letters and affix to canvas one at a time for each picture

(I've got to give credit to my brilliant sister-in-law for this idea. The canvas was nice because it gave the kids something solid to hold onto so we could see the letters. You could also purchased wooden letters, but that'd end up being more expensive. It was nice to use the same font so that even though she's in Amsterdam and I'm here in California, there's some uniformity to the pictures.) 

• Gather all the pictures of the grandkids. We have 4 grandchildren in our family total, so we doubled up on some of the letters. 

**DISCLAIMER** Getting a 19 month old to take these pictures was NOT the easiest. Who knew? But, thankfully due to my sister-in-law's patience, and my husband's assistance, we came out with some good lookin' photos. I'm not sure how she was so successful, but my husband and I had to bribe our son with a cartoon to get him to cooperate. Oh well! We were on a timeline! 

• Crop all the pictures to 1.5" square. 

(It would've been nicer to have each picture larger (you know, for Grandpa-type eyes), but for the plaque I purchased, this size seemed to work nicely and I'm pleased with how it turned out.)

• Arrange pictures on the black craft paper, mod podge to paper.

(Don't know if it would matter or not, but I printed the pictures at Costco so I wouldn't have issues with the ink running when I mod-podged over the pictures.)

• Mod podge the enter strip of paper to the wooden plaque.
• Place rub-on sayings around the plaque.
• Finish by mod-podging the entire wooden plaque for a "finished" look. 
• Wrap up in cute wrapping to present to Grandpa on Father's Day.
• Enjoy the gleeful smile upon opening. =)