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.