Giving the Gift of Memories with a Word Collage

To me there is no more perfect gift than giving your loved ones the gift of memories!  That is why I love gifting personalized and customized gifts with heartfelt words and meaning, and yes, photos!  I recently had the chance to create with the Word Collage Project cartridge from Cricut, and I have found the content to be perfect for creating such meaningful gifts.  The cartridge contains  word art collages fitting for practically any theme or holiday and you can cut them to be used on a variety of  mediums and surfaces.

In my project today, I have used a black and white photo of my niece and her soon-to-be husband and I am pairing the engagement picture with the “True Love” word collage imagery to create a beautiful and memorable piece of home decor which can proudly be displayed in the couple’s new home!

Supplies:

• 12 x 12 inch Scrapbook Frame
• Projects Word Collage Cricut Cartridge
• Teresa Collins Sophisticated Cricut Cartridge 
• Cricut Expression 2 Machine
• DCWV Black Currant Paper Pad - 12 x12 inch 
• Core’dinations Tim Holtz & Ranger Adirondack Paper Pad - 12 x 12 inch 
• Queen & Co. Bling Pearls Nightfall
• Core’dinations Sand It Gadget
• White Paper Lace Doily

Now we can begin to create a memory keepsake!

Directions:

First, you will want to pick two different colors or shades of cardstock to cut out your word collage imagery.  I went with two varying shades of purple from the Tim Holtz & Ranger Adirondack Core’dinations collection pack.  I cut the collage out with the darker shade.

This imagery , <True Love>, was cut out with the Cricut Expression 2 machine using the Cricut Projects Word Collage cartridge, at 10.25″. You will then want to cut straight edges all around the wording with a paper trimmer to an 8.5 x 11.5″ size.

Do you see the extra space near the bottom?  I will later use another Cricut cartridge to cut a border to fit into that extra width.

To give this word collage dimension with depth behind the words, I’ve applied foam dimensional adhesive to sections of the back before matting it to the light purple cardstock which has been trimmed slightly larger.

Okay, now onto that border!  I cut out a sweet winged heart border using the Teresa Collins Sophisticated Cricut cartridge.  This border, <Door> was cut out at 1″, two times.  I used a lighter shade of purple cardstock and then lightly sanded the edges with a Core’dinations Sand It Gadget… a sanding block used to distress the look and reveal the “core” of Core’dinations Cardstock.

You can now attach and adhere the border strips to the bottom of the word collage.  I have also used foam dimensional tape here to create more dimension.

Next, you will want to select what patterned paper you would like to use for backing the word collage inside the frame.  Since I have used a classic looking black and white photo, I went with a floral printed paper in the black and gray tones with some white.  My print selections came from the DCWV Black Currant Paper Pad.  I attached the patterned paper to the cardboard backing of the frame with glue-dots, and inserted the piece into the frame without any glass.  Now you will also want to go back to the negative cut out pieces from the word collage that are still sticking to the Cricut machine mat.  Carefully lift off the negative pieces from the mat, apply glue to them and replace the “centers” to each letter in the word collage, as you can see me doing here for the letter “O” in the word “love”.

It’s now time to add the finishing touches!  Here I’ve folded and attached a white paper doily over the right edge of the word collage.  Using a different floral patterned paper I have hand-cut out a few flowers to use as accents around the matted photo which has been adhered over the doily.

The only extra embellishing I have added are some black pearl accents to the centers of the floral prints and accents.

 The result is a very sophisticated looking keepsake!  I hope you’ll be tempted to create with word collages for your next gift of memories!  Happy crafting!