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July 28, 2012

Creating a Genealogy Gift for under $50.00!

Poster of Charles Fuller 1910
Recently hubs and I created a cool genealogy gift for one of my sons for under $50.00. And it took less than 30 minutes to make.

My youngest son is in the Canadian military and we wanted to surprise him with a military inspired photo for his basement rec room. I have several photos of ancestors in military uniforms but wanted one that could be enlarged without too much fuzziness.

First I took a slightly-creased 4x6 photo of my grandfather Charles Henry Fuller in his military uniform circa 1910. I uploaded the photo to Shutterfly and ordered a poster-size print. Poster prints are less than $25.00 normally but I actually got it for free during a special thank-you offer.

Next hubs purchased a $20.00 black frame from Wal-Mart. It is a 2 foot by 3 foot frame, large enough to allow room for a small border or matte around the poster.

The next step was the most difficult. Hubs removed the paper insert from the purchased frame and turned it over so that only the white backing showed. Then he carefully centered the poster print on the white backing. Once the print was centered he used packing tape which he folded so that it had two sticky sides and tape each corner of the print to the backing. Voila! A lovely poster with a nice white matte. 

Charles Fuller Bio
Next came a brief bio of Charles. I printed out his name, dates and locations of birth and death, and added a brief summary of his immigration from England to Canada in 1913 and marriage to my grandmother Ruth in Toronto in 1914. Using packing tape, hubs fastened it to the back of the frame.

I deliberately did this bio by hand rather than typing it even though it would be much neater in typed format. But I wanted to personalize the bio with my handwriting and at the end, the date and my signature. I did that for descendants as I'm hoping the poster will be passed on to one of my son's three sons and continue on in the family as long as it lasts.

5 comments:

PalmsRV said...

A very nice and inspired gift.

Anonymous said...

Nice idea. I did a similar gift for my hubs a couple of years ago. I found an old photo booth pic of his dad in uniform from WWII. I scanned it and printed it out in 5X7 and framed it. Not as elaborate as yours, but hubs still appreciated it.

I also did one of a fave pic of my dad in his RCAF uni from WWII & they both sit proudly on a shelf of our wall unit.

Anonymous said...

Nice idea. I did a similar one for my hubs a couple of Christmases ago. I found an old photo booth pic of his dad in his RCN uniform, scanned it & printed it out 5X7 & framed it. I liked it so much I did one of my dad in his WWI RCAF uniform.
They both are now proudly displayed on a shelf of our wall unit.

Celia Lewis said...

Wonderful gift idea, Lorine. I have a few photos I'd like to do something similar with them. Thanks for the practical idea. And I love the actual handwriting/signature/date details as well - perfect!

Jim (Hidden Genealogy Nuggets Blog) said...

What a neat genealogy gift. I once organized my dad's old photos and put them in a archive safe photo book. He was also really into genealogy and loved it.

My dad seperated his mom and grandmother's jewelery into a few small cases. He had each of his daughters and granddaughters pick the case they wanted. It was good to put the lineage back to the original owners on a piece of paper in the case.

There are a lot of cool ideas for genealogy gifts which don't cost very much.

Regards, Jim
Genealogy Blog at Hidden Genealogy Nuggets