July 2015 ~ Now That You Are Home...

My husband’s great grandfather was the founder of The Wilson Dairy of Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Dairy opened in the early 1900’s, and was run by generations of family members. Sadly, the dairy closed their doors mid-1960. Here are a few precious artifacts that remain in the family. Among them, a toy milk truck, custom made for one son when he was a child. The milk can, now painted a bright blue, once lived in my husband’s childhood home and was used as a stool under the family phone.

Their great grandfather, Thomas Kelly Wilson, Sr. left behind a legacy of family. Most stay in touch. A family reunion was planned recently and I was asked to decorate the tables. The theme for the reunion was The Wilson Dairy. I wanted to make the evening memorable and give a gift to everyone who attended. A gift that you could use and reuse and keep the memory of the family and a lovely evening alive for years. Simple. Memory Votive from family photos. My sister-in-law was in charge of gathering photos. Once collected we went to work…… This is what you will need to make these:

Photos or copies of photos
Tracing Paper
Copier and paper
Scotch Tape
Scissors
Ruler or straight edge
Glass DOF
Pencil
Clear Contact Paper
Also, votive or tea lights and Epsom Salt.

Start with making copies of the photos. I liked using black and white copies, but you can use a color printer if you like. You may have to change the size of the photo depending on the size of your glass height. And you may need to lighten or darken your copies too. The copies should be able to fit nicely on the glass with a little bit of space above, below and on the sides so it can adhere to the glass. I love the look of using tracing paper as the medium to print copies of the photos, creating a “soft aged” look. Next, take a piece of tracing paper and lay it over the photo copy paper.

With your ruler draw a line on the tracing paper ½” in from all sides of the copy paper underneath. You need to make the tracing paper smaller than the copier paper.
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Next cut along the pencil lines.

Center the tracing paper on the copy paper, making sure you leave ½” from the edge on all sides.

Tape the tracing paper to the copy paper. If you look closely you can see the tape. I scribbled on the tape with the pencil to demonstrate location. Place the “taped paper” that you just made in the paper holder of the copier. Make sure you place it up or down depending which side your copier will print on. You want to print on the side with the tracing paper. Arrange your copies of your photos on the copier and print.

Once you have made your copies onto the tracing paper you need to trim them.

One photo was a bit light so I used a pencil to draw or fill in some of the photo that was missing. You can see the roof lines that I added in this one photo.

Get your contact paper ready by pulling the paper backing away from the contact paper. Easier said than done. This is the hardest part of the whole project! Pull the entire width of the paper back and over itself.

Pull several inches back and leave the “sticky” side up over the smooth side of the paper. Give yourself plenty of sticky paper to work with.

Place you tracing paper photos on the sticky side and lightly smooth.

Trim the photos. Leave a little bit of the contact paper on all sides of the photo so it will adhere to the glass.

Position the photo onto the glass and smooth from the center out making sure there are no wrinkles or bubbles. You can lift, peal and reapply if you need to adjust placement.

Fill the glasses with an inch or so of Epsom Salt to hold the votive or tea light. I love working with Epsom Salt for all kinds of reasons. Mainly it is inexpensive and can be reused. If it becomes filled with wax, just fill the glass with water to clean up. The salt will dry up when exposed to air and lose its sparkle, but by adding a little clear glitter you can give it a new life. Center your votive in the Epsom Salt to anchor. Light and you are done!