These instructions are for making a very simple 6 panel photo lantern. I am making this one out of 4″x4″ photographs trimmed from 4″x6″ prints that cost 15 cent each, so including the cord and some dabs of glue the entire project cost less than $1.50.

Supply List:

• • 6 Square photographs of any size
  • 1 Piece of scrap paper the same size as photographs
  • Piece of Ribbon or Cord
  • Pen or Pencil
  • Scissors
  • Glue

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  Cut a paper template the same size as your photo squares

   

  

  A) Fold the paper in half and then half again, as shown by solid lines in this picture. B) Cut 2 sides as shown in the photograph on the dotted lines.

   

  

  Normally you would fold the red envelopes to determine the fold lines that make the square or diamond shapes, so as to not bend the photograph we will use the template to draw the fold lines on the back of the photograph.

   

  

  To ensure the template is square, we are only going to draw 2 corners at a time.

   

  

  Draw around template and then turn around.

   

  

  Trace around the template again.

   

  

  The back of your photo should now have a perfect square drawn on it to use as fold lines. Repeat on the backs of remaining 5 photographs.

   

  

  Gently fold each photo along your template lines forward

  

  Crimp a crisp edge at each line, on each photograph.

   

  

  Each photo should look like this.

   

  

  By now you should have decided which 3 photographs are going to be on top and which 3 will be on the bottom. The top 3 photographs should all point to the center when you glue them.

   

  

  Glue the top left edge of one photo to the top right corner of the second photo you want on the top.

   

  

  I recommend using tiny clothes pins to hold each section together as it dries. They will not leave marks on the photographs like some other methods might.

   

  

  Line up and glue the 3rd photograph to the second photograph.

   

  

  You will need to place your ribbon or cord, coming out of the top before you glue the final corner of the 3rd photo to the 1st photo. In order to keep the ribbon or cord from sliding out of the photo cube you must secure it by either tying several large knots or gluing and or stapling a piece of scrap card stock to the ribbon or cord. If you are only making one lantern you could cut a corner off the template you made earlier.

  

  Position the knot of your cord in the top corner and glue the final top corner of the 3rd photo to the top corner of the 1st photo. This should secure the ribbon or cord in place.

   

  

  Secure all of your glue joints and set aside to dry.

  

  The 3 photos for the bottom half should be arranged where you glue the bottom point of all three photos together.

   

  

  While you placed your hanging ribbon or cord at the center of the top half, I made a small loop of cord (again stapled to card stock) to come out of the bottom so that I could hang embellishment from the bottom. This step is not necessary if you are not going to hand a tassel or other item from the bottom. Let the glue dry securely before moving on.

   

  

  The glue on the top half and bottom half must be thoroughly dry. Then you will glue the 2 haves together, securing each joint as you go, until they are dry.

   

  

  I found it easiest to put glue on all of the flaps on the bottom half and secure each flap around.

  

  At this point you can add any embellishment you might want to the little loop if you put one in. If you did not put a bottom loop on your project you are complete ! ENJOY

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  Since I had 4″x6″ prints made, in order to get the 4×4 photos for the project, I was left with a 2″ x 4″ area. I reduced the 4″x4″ photo and made 2, 2″x2″ copies of the larger photo. I chose 12 photos instead of 6 and for my embellishment  I am adding a 2″x2″, 6 panel photo lantern, below the 4″x4″ photo lantern. – Was easier than it sounds.

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  I looped the cord to hang the small cube through the bottom loop of the large cube.

  

  I continued making the small cube just the same as the larger cube.

  

  I secured the photos and let them dry well as I went.

  

  I even left a small tail coming out of the bottom of the small cube for an additional embellishment.

   

  

  I am extremely happy with the small photo cubes as embellishments. The bottom embellishment is a tag with the name, age and birth location of grandmother Yuntie Chin Leo.

   

  

  If you enjoyed this project leave a comment below and I will post the tutorial for making the 15 photo panel Hung Bow Lantern!

  

  See Also

  Converting Handwritten Chinese Fonts to Computerized Character Fonts.

  

  HANDWRITTEN SIGNATURE

  

  READ MORE !

  There is an App For That !

  “Genealogy-Gencrafts.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking from/to amazon.com.”

  If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy-GenCrafts here on the web. Thanks ~ Jackie

CHINESE THEMED PEDIGREE CHARTS

The Chinese have a complicated structure as to how they address their family members and ancestors based on whether the person is from their father’s side, mothers side, whether the person is older or younger than their parent, grand parents etc.

Many Chinese individuals never know or learn their ancestors actual names because they refer to them by these names. If you have old photographs, these nomenclature may require you to determine WHO wrote the name on the back of the photo.

Chinese are more likely to display Family Charts than individual Pedigree Charts.

For more information read further explanations on Wikipedia.org (You will be leaving my site)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_kinship

When Chinese married, it was most often a prearranged marriage, and the first time the bride and groom saw each other was when she was carried from her fathers village in a sedan chair and arrived at the door of the grooms house in a sedan chair and he opened the curtain after throwing firecrackers at the sedan chair to ward off any evil spirits.

If you are VERY, VERY LUCKY your parents or grandparents may be in possession of the three generational chart that would have been exchanged by the families prior to marriage to make sure they were not to closely related.

This document (not a generational chart) explains the woman’s birth date, and birth location, presented to the grooms family to determine if the marriage will have compatability.

If you want to be able to read, understand and display the information, for your family, you may want to create your own personal Chinese Themed Pedigree Chart.

Note: I am not Chinese, and this is a “Chinese Themed Pedigree Chart”, that I painted. Not to be represented as something you would find in China.

Information that may be of interest, regarding Chinese naming patterns.

Each village had one primary family all related to each other. Everybody in the village thus had the same family name. Chinese naming traditions dictate the Family Name comes first, then the individuals name, and then (to aid in the confusion of everybody having the same family name, each generation of a particular family, all had the same (third) generational name.

EXAMPLE:

Family Name: Wong

Individual’s name: Hung

Therefore “Wong Hung Yin” and ALL of his brothers generational name was Yin. All his sisters would have the same generational name also but may not be exactly the same middle name as their brothers.

So any individual in a village whose name was Wong Something Yin, would be siblings. No question about it. And all the men whose generational name was Yin had fathers, whose generational name was the same. So you could group generations but not necessarily figure out whose son they were.

Each family had an 8 generation “Family Poem” So they knew 8 generations in advance what first letter they would use to pick the generational name for their children.

This makes grouping the male ancestor moderately accurate. Until the men get married and take a “Married” Name, unrelated to their birth name. And when they came to America they might adopt and English name.

Take into account the various accent with which they talked and how the person heard what they said, and finding ships list with the correct ancestor on the list has issues.

On the other hand, while the women had childhood names,  once they married they often took their fathers family name added “Shee” (wife of) then her husbands name. Thus a female named Chin Yuntie who married a man who was of the Leo Clan, Would become Chin Shee Leo . . . Taking into account the Chin Village was probably fairly near the Leo Village, you end up with a large number of women named Chin Shee Leo. After coming to America some Chinese women went back to there childhood name. As an example the woman above took the name  Yuntie (her childhood name), Chin (her father’s clan), Leo (her husbands family name). Yuntie Chin Leo.

Prior to the 1930 each village had an “Ancestral Hall” that housed all the generations information, however the Communist did their best to destroy all of those records to break familial ties making standard genealogy research much more difficult.

This post is still a work in progress.

Basic Red Chinese Lantern Photo Cube

Whether you make the basic Chinese Lantern or embellish yours with tassels or dragons, this photo cube is simple to put together and versatile. And if you don’t have any Chinese ancestors all you have to do is change the color scheme and embellishments and you can make this lovely “Mothers Day Tulip” shaped photo cube.

Simple lantern decorated with Dragon Heads, A Tassel and the Chinese Character for “Wong”.

For Bright Red Chinese Lantern template CLICK HERE

For Dirty Pour Chinese Lantern template CLICK HERE

For Tulip Lantern template CLICK HERE

I would recommend printing several copies at home on your printer if you have one to practice your cutting and folding.

Cut out the Chinese Lantern Template.

Fold each section of the Chinese Lantern template and press crisply.

Repeat the folding process at the bottom of the photos and press crisply.

Lay on the table and press firmly with your finger.

Gently flatten the Chinese Lantern Template.

Fold all of the Vertical lines of the template.

Pinch the vertical lines crisply.

Fold each of the glue tabs.

It is important that the fold is pinched crisply.

Use double sided tape on all of the glue tabs and the side tab. It is important that the tape cover the entire tab. Either use glue tape which I found worked best or hot glue. Trying to use contact cement was frustrating (for me) and it was next to impossible to hold position while regular craft glue set up.

ADDITIONAL STEPS INSERTED HERE

Examples Of  Various Embellishments

Chinese knots and tassels make great embellishments for the Chinese Lanterns.

More complex tassels are easy to assemble.

CONVERTING HAND WRITTEN CHINESE CHARACTERS TO A COMPUTER FONT

Sample of Chinese Characters

The solution is easier than you might imagine.

Do they have an app for that?

Better than an app, translation into other languages and their appropriate fonts are built into the operating system of Iphones, I don’t know about other brands.  You can write in almost any language. Just switch keyboards to any language you want. Settings/General/Keyboards/Add New Keyboard.

Then when you want to compose a Chinese character –

• Open your email program.
• Click on the little globe.
• On the screen that comes up, use your finger to draw the character.
• A selection of characters that the Chinese translator thinks you may have drawn comes up.
• Compare the characters to what you were trying to draw.
• Tap the correct character and it pops up to the email message box.
• Do the next character you want.
• When you have all of the characters you plan to do, email the message to yourself.
• Now you can copy, cut and paste the character into many programs.
• Make a file/page that has all your characters on it so it is easy to copy for future projects, instead of having to go find them in your email.

All without a Chinese keyboard.. I did not say it was easy or fast, but it works.

It does help if your ancestor had decent handwriting, was not in a hurry, and you have several samples to compare.

NOW WHAT?

What can you do with your new found ability to turn your Chinese ancestors names into something modifiable?

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If you want to have a wide selection of Chinese font opportunities, check out . . .

https://www.freechinesefont.com

where you will find 384 different fonts for you to download, including: 44 Cute; 41 Calligraphy; 33 Handwriting; 7 Elegant; 124 Simplified Chinese; 25 Pop; 15 Headline; 2 Song Ti; 51 Traditional Chinese; 29 Modern and 8 Rounded. 21 of which are specifically tagged in “Commercial-use OK”

 

The “Cute” type styles really made me smile . .

 

There is even a font with lots of hearts in the characters.

 

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If you don’t want to download and install fonts, ChineseTools.eu has 14 different fonts built in, and all you have to do is paste the word or words into the box, pick your font and size and download the finished calligraphy.

https://www.chinesetools.eu

This site has links to a multitude of interesting tools including: A Chinese calligraphy generator; Stroke order where you put in the character and it shows you the order you should use to write the character yourself; Chinese Family Relationship Titles; Characters for Chinese Tatoos with their meanings; A Character Decomposition tool ; A Chinese Calendar that you can convert any date from the Julian Calendar into the equivalent Chinese date, once you get to the proper month and year calendar it shows the Chinese holidays in that month; A love calculator based on both persons birth dates and Chinese Astrology; and MANY more tools. Some work better than others. You need to make sure the type style is Simplified Chinese. There is also a converter for Traditional to Simplified Chinese.

Here are some of my favorite tools at this site.

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

Screenshot from the Chinesetools.eu Calligraphy Generator

 

This Character and the ones below, are the Surname “Wong” in different Chinese Typestyles. It was generated at https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

 

This font is very much like many of the family “Chop”s. A Stamp usually carved into soapstone, most often pressed into a red stamp pad to print on artwork or stamp at the bottom of letters and documents. It was generated at https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

 

This style is also a traditional font used for Chop’s. It was generated at: https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

 

This font looks a lot like it is imitating bamboo. It was generated at:https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

I have seen these fonts embroidered on Chines hats and robes. This font looks a lot like it is imitating bamboo. They are perfect for bold art. They were generated at:https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinesecalligraphy

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/drawing-name

JACKIE – Example of Word Art from Chinesetools.eu

Enter your name or any word, pick from one of 14 fonts, pick from one of 35 Chinese Paintings and it will generate same as Chinese Art including the name and a chop.

Examples of two of the pieces of art you can put any Chinese characters you want on.

You may download it and print as you desire from their website at:

https://www.chinesetools.eu/tools/chinese-seals/

Enter Chinese characters and it will turn it into a Chop Seal in either red with white background or white with red background, in one of several different fonts.

You need to convert your character to Simplified Chinese, there is a link to a tool to do that.

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http://www.chine-culture.com/en/chinese-calligraphy

Enter Chinese Character onto page. Choose the size of the Chinese calligraphy model. Pick one of 10 Chinese fonts. Choose the orientation of the characters and generate the calligraphy.

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http://www.words-chinese.com/text-to-image

Besides the Chinese Calligraphy Generator the site also has Traditional>Simple Character converter and a Pinyin-Converter

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There are other great sites, but these are the ones I have been using.

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LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN TUTORIALS FOR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING PROJECTS !

Examples of Chinese Monogram Ornaments with Acrylic Dirty Pour backgrounds and 3D puff paint Chinese characters that I made of the Wong, Leo and Chin family names to add to the family Chinese New Years Decorations.

 

Traditional Hung Bow Lantern designs modified to celebrate Chinese Ancestors

Chinese Themed Pedigree Chart

See a wide variety of Family based arts and crafts

HERE

How I use a vintage postcard to make this custom matte for a Civil War Ancestor.

I found this vintage GAR postcard on ebay for $3 plus $1 postage

You could use the original, but I have another project in mind for it, so I scanned the card and deleted the area where the soldier was.

Then using the clone tool to keep the original color and texture, I deleted the words “To My Comrades” on the banner

I added D. McArthur on the banner in a color I picked up from the eagle.

I put the photo of David McArthur in the opening where the soldier had been.

Instead of enlarging the card to fit a 5×7″ frame, I put a matte behind the photo in the shade that was in the shadows under the banner and put a drop shadow on the card layer to make it pop. Now it is ready to print and frame.

A military tribute to your families veterans makes a memorable addition to your family history scrapbooks.

I cannot believe I passed my high school history classes. I remembered just enough to pass the test and the dates and events flew out the back side of my head faster than the chapter on the next war. Now with those date put in relationship to each generation of my ancestors, I cannot believe that my brother fought in Vietnam, my father in WWII, my grandfather got out of fighting in WWI somehow (I wish I knew the answer to that), and my great grandfather was a cook in the Civil War because of a bad back and his brother died in Andersonville Prison (a very bad place where most died of disease.

Somehow that puts war in another light. I think if they had all the students make a chart that showed which generation of their own families fought in which war, maybe they would pay more attention in class.

Even if they did not do anything heroic or get wounded, any individual who served during any conflict or war would have received a Campaign Medal or Commendation that are a colorful addition to a military collage. If the collage is for a page in a family history book and you don’t have the actual medals, photographs can be found online. If you are doing a shadow box it is possible to order replacement medals online.

A Timeline is a great way to show military service. If a person were in the Navy it is a simple process to search for the name of the ship and get photos (for personal use) and list of dates of where the ship was and the conflicts it engaged.

Fold3.com is your one stop internet site (for a fee) for millitary records, Revolutionary War through current conflicts and among other thing it has photos from “Cruse Books” from the Vietnam conflict that has unit photos and information on the various Navy ships of the era. It is a simple matter to find information on the internet regarding a given ship after you narrow down the dates your ancestor was on it.

For a fee you can get your ancestors entire military file from the National Archives online at: https://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records which will list everything you need for timelines and searches for appropriate photographs if you don’t have any. If you are lucky enough to already have discharge papers or any other documentation regarding your ancestors service, there is huge amounts of data that you can find for free online to add spice and variety to your collage.

There were and are also many veterans organizations for veterans of every war, starting with Daughters of the Revolution, The GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) and currently Amvets that retain many records and photographs.

For step by step instructions on how I turned a vintage postcard into a personalized photo mount – CLICK HERE

Celebrate your Mexican ancestors with this Simple Shutter Frame Ofrenda

Perfect addition to your table top family alter.

To make the shadow box Ofrenda, I started with a Plaid brand Shutter Frame, a wooden laser cut oval frame and some packing material that came with a small hard drive.

I wanted the shutters to look like “Papal Picado” so I painted each one different tissue paper colors. I painted the shadow box black, so I painted the frame in front a contrasting bright color.

I pulled out all of my Day of the Dead themed notions.

The oval frame needed a way to float in front of the shadow box so I used hot glue to glue a couple tin flowers on the front of the frame.

I used hot glue to suspend the oval frame over the shadow box hole.

Center the oval frame in the space where the photo usually goes.

Oval frame in place.

I glued a photograph of my great grandfather onto a piece of scrap cardboard I painted black to give it a stiff support to suspend behind the oval frame. I wanted a 1/4 setback between the photo and the oval frame but it would have been simple to just hot glue or tape the photograph behind the oval frame.

I glued 4 beads onto the back of the photo to space the photo away from the back wall of the the shadow box, but keeping it 1/4″ from the oval frame.

I was happy with the placement of the photo, but I did not glue the shadow box to the back of the frame yet.

I used my assorted notions to decorate the frame.

I used a small plastic cross and glued a skull to the cross to make a candle holder. Then I melted a one inch section from the top of a gold birthday candle, using a bit of hot glue.

I had originally thought I would make tiny cut tissue paper Papel Picado for the shutters, but I found and used decorative tape to make the shutters look like Papel Picado. This was much easier and far more intricate than I would have ended up with had I followed my original plan.

I made miniature Papel Picado banners to hang across the open Ofrenda.

Side view

I had intended on tucking paper marigolds in the shadowbox behind the picture but I decided the black was much more dramatic and so I left it flat black and glued the shadow box with the photo behind the frame.

I hope my tutorial has inspired you to create one of your own. Please leave any comments or questions below. I would love to hear about your genealogy crafts. If you need any of the supplies from Amazon, please click through using the Genalogy-GenCraft affiliate links below.

If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy-GenCrafts here on the web. Thanks ~ Jackie

Supplies for this Project

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Other “Day of the Dead” themed items you may be interested in…

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NOTE: I am not Tlinget. This art project is to demonstrate making a pedigree chart based on family tradition and/or art created by one of your ancestors. I am just lucky enough to have offered to help a friend with her genealogy and do a pedigree chart for her, only to find that she possessed the most fabulous tunic created by her mother.

A similar project could just as easily be done using the fabric of your mother or grandmothers apron or favorite dress and bits and scraps out of their jewelry box or junk drawer.

I sat down with my friend Julia, and started asking her all the standard questions to fill out a pedigree chart to the best of her abilities, as far as she knew so I could continue and confirm the information.

Then I asked her if she had any photographs of her parents, grandparents, etc and she produced this incredible portrait of her parents.

Rachel “Dixie” Johnson and Peter Charles Johnson Sr.

I commented how cool it would have been if the photo were in color and she said she owned the tunic that her mother was wearing in the picture.

Front of Julia’s mother’s tunic

Back of Julia’s mother’s tunic

I set to work taking lots of photographs with my iphone of all the detailing as well as a large solid area of felt on the back. Here are only a few of them.

Bead work on tunic

Bead work and fringe on tunic

Large solid area of felt on back of tunic

Button boarder on sides of tunic

First I made color swatches from the photos of Julia’s mother’s tunic

One of the first things I did was replicate sections of the bead work and make Julia some scrapbooking paper using the colors and textures found in the tunic

Using Photoshop filters I made more abstract digital scrapbooking papers based on the bead work and colors found on the tunic made by Julia’s mother.

Using a traditional Tlinget Button Blanket shape, I copied buttons and beads off of the tunic to make a simple Pedigree Chart for Julia using the digital scrapbook papers I made in Photoshop using the colors and textures from her mothers tunic.

But the project that exploded in my mind when I first saw the tunic was this chart, using more of the elements from the tunic. The felt from the tunic, the fringe on the bottom with the button borders, the beaded flowers, and the beaded eagle head.

Every element on this artwork, turned pedigree chart, was created by Julia’s mother, Rachel “Dixie” Johnson, I just rearranged it and included the portrait that led me down the path to this finished product.

I did the entire project using digital images in Photoshop. There was no fabric, bead work or eagles, damaged to create this artwork.

Final artwork designed using elements of fabric and bead work from Julia’s mother’s tunic.

I hope this inspires you to create a pedigree chart that jumps out of the frame instead of the same old, same old, chart they have been photocopying down the ages.

Get Inspired !

Jackie Whedbee-Mattingly

The bead work designs above were created by Peter Charles Johnson Sr and executed by Rachel “Dixie” Johnson. I received permission to put the photographs on this post, and to do the pedigree charts. Please respect their creative copywrite and mine and do not reproduce without written permission. © 2017 Genealogy-Gencrafts.com

Making a word cloud is simple, weather you do it yourself or use one of the automatic word cloud programs.

I Googled making word clouds and found auto generators at WordClouds.com, http://www.wordle.net . . .and the list goes on.

I found wordclouds.com a little frustrating, I could not make the names I wanted to be larger. I found Wordle.net easier to use

On the first tote I made the current generation the largest, our grandparents and children the next size down, Great Grandparents and Grandchildren the next size down, etc. On the second tote I made my mother and fathers surnames the largest, my husband(s) names next, same size as grandparents, great grandparents a little smaller and great great grandparents the smallest.

Over the years I have transferred line art to fabric using every method I could find and finally arrived on a product that is simple to use, and irons onto the fabric in the colors I wanted and possibly could have left “As Is”, but I wanted some texture and left the transfer light enough to color over it. My favorite transfer pen ever is the Silky Iron-On Transfer Pens, available in eight colors.

Supplies:

Fabric Tote

Favorite Transfer Pen ever:

Sulky Iron On transfer Pens

Some of my favorite medium that did not run or bleed on the course tote fabric:

Uchida 122-6A Fabric Ball and Brush Marker, Set of 6

Went down creamy and rich. Ironed permenant.

Particularly well suited for Valentines cards and decorations, the concept behind these projects are taking the initials from your pedigree, and carving the initials in a tree and interpreting them into Valentines Art.

Carved initials on a box of Chocolates

Colors, Initials and embellishments to suite your style.

I started by purchasing a set of alphabet stamps that were suitably small enough to stamp the wooden hearts.

I stamped the “&” symbol first on each heart

They don’t have to be perfect, but even if you have not painted the hearts you still have 2 chances to get the perfect look . . . if you don’t like it turn it over and try again.

Either before or after stamping you can color and or embellish the hearts any way you please. Or trace over the stamped initials in alternative colors.

Hot glue your hearts onto the chocolate box or Valentine . . . .

Snip some pieces of twigs to go between your hearts and hot glue in place. If you don’t like their color you can paint them either before or after glueing in place.

This same style of “Carved Initials” Pedigree makes a great Valentines Card

If you are interested in ordering from Amazon.com, please click on any of these ads to be directed to their site. Any purchases, while there, will give us a small bonus, at no extra cost to you. This will help fund the Genealogy GenCraft site, here on the web. Thanks ~ Jackie

“Genealogy-GenCrafts.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking from/to amazon.com.”

Everybody has their own style of scrapbooking, and it is easy to translate that style into decorating the top of boxes of chocolates making them suitable for anything from Valentines decorations to holding trinkets and memorabilia.

Does your family have a love story?

The most romantic story in our family is that of my Uncle Everett and Aunt Velda’s 50th wedding anniversary. Their children sent them to Hawaii, since they had never went on a honeymoon. Mid-flight, my uncle talked to the stewardess and she let him have the microphone where, at 32,000 feet, on a plane full of people, he beautifully sang, “Let Me Call You Sweet Heart” to his blushing bride . . .

Here I used tissue paper and doodles, with a rosette made from cupcake liners to embellish this small box of chocolates that I picked up at Walmart for $1.

I featured my grandmother, Anne Bethel Hoyt, on a Crazy-Quilt-styled piece of scrapbook art on the cover of a box of chocolates. I used a variety of textured papers, as well as lace and pearl embellishments, to create this chocolate box with a vintage touch.

After the love of my mother’s life (my dad) she loved anything Glittery, Gold, Red, Hearts, Roses and Elvis Presley. This box top is a wonderful combination of all of those in a digital scrapbooking style, without any additional embellishments.

Here is the art which I used as the base layer to create my moms “Box of Chocolates”.

Notes for the Digital Scrapbooked Heart…

• I used Photoshop to assemble this digital scrapbook image.
• I started by putting my box of chocolates in the scanner to get the precise size and shape of the top of the box.
• I added interest by having the photos going in different directions.
• I got “texture” photos by searching the internet for Gold and Red Fabric (for personal use only)
• I put a copy of her marriage certificate as a top layer, at 70% opacity. Erased wherever there was a body/faces or other important images.
• I used a bevel and drop shadow on the marriage license newspaper clipping and the rose and crochet hearts.
• To add variety to the photos, I used “photo filter” to shift the tone of several of the black and white photos, some warm, some cool, and hand-colored one of the black and white photos.
• I was able to put 2 completed hearts on an 8×10″ file (that I then had a high quality commercial print of) so I could keep one box and give my sister the other.
• Between New Years and Valentines day, I found small boxes of chocolates at Walmart costing as little as $1-$3. That is less than an empty heart-shaped box from a craft store.

Merry Everything and a Happy Always

20 years later the decorations are still hanging. Some old some new.

One for Christmas I decorated the archway into my kitchen. I used 2 simple expandable curtain rods (the kind with a spring you just squeeze and put in place) I wrapped one string of 50 tiny red lights that are so cheap at Christmas and a string of 50 multi-color lights around the rod and plugged them in behind the refrigerator.

First I wrapped clear and white beaded garland around the rods. I hung up some non specific ornaments, including little pictures like ones I have tutorials on Genealogy-Gencrafts.com. found Here and Here Then I tucked white garland loosely around the curtain rod, and then red garland was added. . . super festive . . and yes, dare I say, Christmasy.

After Christmas I left everything up except a couple definite Christmas items, and replaced them with Hearts. Not even fancy hearts, just red and pink paper hearts. And I unplugged the multi Color lights, but left them in place.

Shortly after Valentines day I took down the hearts and red garland (note –  I put the white garland up first so removing the red garland was easy.) I unplugged the red lights and plugged the multi-colored lights back in. It was almost like I had a plan. I made and hung some family egg panoramas across the rod. (family egg panoramas are found on the blog here) note – I did not remove the other items on the rod.

After Easter I was at a partial loss. .  .Next Holiday was 4th of July . . . even the white garland was a bit much so I took it down along with the Easter Egg panoramas.

Ironically I had gotten use to the lights framing the kitchen door arch .. . I could navigate upstairs without turning on any lights.

That was over 20 years ago . . .I never have taken down the rods . . .and the lights stay on. Sometimes I unplug them in the summer but most years I don’t. . . .

I had one 4th of July item that I can’t really call an ornament, added to the menagerie and it still hangs there.

Hope everyone has a Merry.

Jackie Whedbee-Mattingly

When you are lucky enough to have photographs of multiple generations you need to show them off in ways that get the most mileage.

And Coffee Cups often fit the bill.

Unlike whipping out your smart phone to show your latest selfies to people who don’t care, having your family photos on your coffee cups inspire people interested in genealogy to perk up and ask questions. Or not.

This cup shows photos of my sisters grand children, her daughter, her, our mother, our mothers mother, and her mother . . . and her mother . . . . .

Some layouts are handy because at a certain point you can swap out the younger generations and use the same design for sisters and cousins like I did here.

Susan’s Mothers Day, Coffee Cup

Noma’s Mothers Day Coffee Cup

The first layout being my sister’s cup and the second cup being for a cousin. I had to change out their moms, them and their children and grandchildren, but the grandmothers, great grandmothers and great great grandmothers remained the same.

Mothers, Mothers, Mother

Since I had one printed and mailed and the other cup was printed locally I had to change the dimensions. This is something you have to be careful about. Even between cups from the same company the dimensions are different for 11 oz cups vs 15 oz cups etc.

Tin Ornament with the photograph of John L Whedbee Sr and his grandson Charles in approximately 1930, in Arkansas.

Creating Beautiful Vintage Looking Ornaments

Supplies Needed:

• Tin Ornament
• Mod Podge
• Paint Brush
• Photo Printed on LASER PRINTER
• Desired Embellishments

Coat Tin with a generous layer of Matte Mod Podge

Carefully place photo or art, toner side down onto the tin.

Starting at the center, gently press the paper against the tin, working out wrinkles and excess Mod Podge.

Press out from the center until it is as smooth as possible.

Once you have pressed out the wrinkles to the best of your abilities, set the ornament aside for 3 to 4 hours or overnight to dry. The longer the better.

After the ornament is completely dry submerge in water for about 30 seconds.

After 30 seconds gently rub the paper, if it starts rolling off, continue gently rubbing, if it does not dip back in water for a few seconds at a time until it does start rolling off.

Rub the paper away.

Dip back in the water.

Continue Rubbing the paper away.

You are going to want to get all of the paper to rub away, just keep dipping and rubbing, this takes patience.

When you have rubbed all of the paper away let it dry. if you see any paper fibers left you can use wet fingers to get the last of the fibers to roll away.

I decided to slightly color the photograph with pearlescent watercolors.

I painted a little peach on the skin, blue on the shirt and green in the trees.

After I was happy with the color I dabbed another layer of Mod Podge over the entire ornament, dabbing instead of brushing so I did not move the watercolor paint around. Then I sprinkled on some gold Mica Chips and glitter to sparkle it up a bit.

I tied a piece of ribbon around the top of the ornament and it was ready for the tree.

Other Examples

Paul Benton Hoyt and his first wife Amelia Long

Albert Mattingly, husband of Louise Catherine Ryan

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Make the most of grandmothers cookie cutters or make new family treasures from thrift store finds !

Tools and Supplies

Tools:

• Drill to put a hole in the top of the cookie cutter. You could use a nail and hammer.
• Block of wood to drill into
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue

Supplies

• Cookie Cutters
• Photo Prints
• Pen and Paper
• Glue squares
• Jump Ring and Ribbon to hang the ornament, options below.
• 3 dimentional paint, I used a glitter color on this ornament, works as both glue and grout to cover any mistakes. Tin cookie cutters I use a pewter color that looks good with the silver cookie cutter.
• Whatever Embellishments you desire

Trace around your cookie Cutters and then scan the page so you can use it for sizing your photographs to make them the perfect size. If that is to complicated, get 4 x 6 prints of your photos and pick a cookie cutter to fit the picture instead of the other way around.

I used the scan of the cookie cutters as the bottom layer in Photoshop and made sure the pictures I wanted for the cookie cutter ornaments fit. Then I sent one 8×10 print to have a matte print made. Glossy printes end up with fingerprints on them. The final print I was able to make 9 cookie cutter ornaments.

Make sure your photos fit the cookie cutters by making a print at home before sending to get a photo quality print.

Drilled a small hole in the top of the cookie cutter to put a ribbon through. You could also epoxy a loop of some sort to hang from or tie a ribbon to.

Hold the cookie cutter behind the photo to get perfect placement.

Trace around the cookie cutter

Since the sides of this cookie cutter are tapered, i drew a second line 1/8 of an inch smaller than the outside so the picture would be perfectly positioned.

Make sure your photo fits perfectly.

This was a very shallow cookie cutter so I only used the 1/4″ x 14″ mounting squares.

Place the mounting squares all the way around the cookie cutter.

Once you get the mounting squares in, but before you put the picture it you must install the ribbon hanger. I tied the ribbon securely to a jump ring.

I put the ribbon down through the hole I drilled at the top of the tree and then hot glued the ribbon to the back of the cookie cutter.

Place the photo in the cookie cutter where it sets nicely on the mounting squares.

Make sure it fits perfectly.

Put a tiny amount of glitter glue or 3 dimensional paint on the edges of the mounting squares to adhere the photo to. You could also use any simple paper glue.

Put your photo in position and run another line of glitter glue around the edge of the cookie cutter and embellish as you please.

The tiny Christmas lite strand make this tree even more festive !

A grand way to pass down the family recipes are to turn them into practical kitchen artifacts.

When I was a child, I thought “salad dressing” was this recipe. The recipe was on a 3 x 5 card in my moms recipe box, it said “Lois’s French Dressing” at the top of the card. I was a teenager before I learned there were other kinds.  And not being a fan of salad in general, I did not think much about it over the years unless I was in a situation that I had a plate of lettuce put in front of me. When my mother passed away one of my disappointments was that this recipe was no longer in the recipe box.

When I decided to do a post about handing down recipe’s I was reminded of this tangy memory of my aunt Lois and I called my sister and asked her if she could go through moms recipe boxes and look again for me, to no avail. I even contacted Lois’s daughter.

You were almost reading a post about the worlds best pecan pie, made out of walnuts, but that is a long story in itself.

You have to consider the fact that I have moved several times over the years since mom passed away, and to my knowledge I have never had a copy of the recipe. About 2 weeks ago I moved a box in my dining room and a piece of paper fell out. While I do believe in miracles I doubt that they get wasted on salad dressing recipe’s, but there it was. A very old xerox copy . . . Aunt Lois’s French Dressing . .

Pecan Pie will be on a dish towel. . .

Step One – Design your Pot Holder in your choice of layout programs and print the design on some cotton fabric with a laser printer or write out the recipe directly onto fabric with a waterproof pen.

8″ x 8″ is a practical size.

I made a salad and poured on the dressing, and took a photo and printed it, to put on the back side of the pot holder. You could do similar or use any cotton fabric of your choice. Maybe even use some fabric from a heavy cotton item belonging to the recipe owner?

Step 2 – Assemble your pot holder. You will need some padding. I used 2 layers of an older towel but you could purchase some fusible fleece for padding. I have not sewn in years so I sprayed the back sides of the front and back fabric with some spray basting. A shot to both pieces of towel and stacked them appropriately. Then used some 3/8″ heat bond to iron on the hem tape. In the top left corner I added a loop to hang the pot holder.

Step 3 – Embellish. Depending on how durable you want your pot holder to be you should either use a sewing machine to secure the pot holder together or do as I did and use a blanket stitch to go around the edges.

The perfect gift for children moving away from home !

Family history has often been found in the pages of your ancestors Bibles, but today’s Bibles are becoming tomorrows treasures in their own rights. Bible Journaling has become a common past time that has become as common as the adult coloring books that fly off the shelves.

•  This page, which illustrates Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 has been pushed a step further than simple illustration.  It has pressed and dried ferns, the same kind of fern picked and pressed, over the entire month of September . . .

• Ecclesiastes 3 King James Version (KJV) , To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: 2 A time to be born, and a time to die. etc. The words to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 have the distinction of being the oldest lyrics to every make it to #1 on the pop charts, sung by The Byrds in 1965.

• The photos are all of my Great Great Grandmother, Anna Theresa (Downs) Freund.

• The effect that I achieved was, that in Spring when the ferns were bright green, she is on gloss paper with wings for dreams, and then she got married and was printed on practical 20 pound bond surrounded with flowers and maturing ferns that were starting to turn, and then as the color faded from both the ferns and Anna, the ferns curled and there was snow on the ferns.

• At the top, Anna is 90 years old, she is kind of faded, as is her portrait, on purpose, by the way I transferred it to the Bible using a blender pen. The curled up brown leaves that have fiber paste on them that made nice snow.

• Assembling the art on this page I used the least amount of Mod Podge possible for each item since I knew there was more to follow. I brushed up all that squeezed out each time with a dry brush until I was finished and then put one light coat over all of the flowers and leaves just to seal the edges down.