Custom Word Collage

There’s a lot of fun to be had creating home décor with your digital camera and some basic inexpensive editing software. You may have seen word collages made into prints from the photographs of outdoor signs. Using the same concept you can create some great images of your own with photos from your home. Spell out your family name, your children’s names or diner-type phrases such as "Eatery" for your kitchen or "Arcade" for the TV room. There’s no end to the possibilities of words and phrases.

With your camera in hand, and your word or words of choice spelled out on a piece of paper, walk around your house looking for anything with lettering that has a letter you need. I found letters on an old toy wagon, outdoor thermometer, vintage syrup tin, home stereo, my son’s bedroom door sign, the “Enjoy” sign that hangs in our kitchen, an antique scale and the bakery sign I painted for my first Right@Home guest blogger post. For the “at” character, I simply drew it on our kitchen chalkboard. The nice thing about digital cameras is the feature that allows for extreme close-up shots for any lettering you find that is quite small.

Other letter sources can be shapes found within your furniture and accessories, such as a floor lamp for the letter “I,” the roofline as an “A” and even your car’s tire for an “O.” Another fun idea is to have your kids spell out the letters of their names with their bodies using outstretched arms and legs.

Once your photos are taken, open the images into your software program. Crop the individual letters from your photos scaling to the same dimensions for each image. Consider the dimensions of your frames if you will be framing these. You can also print your images in black and white or sepia for a vintage effect. Print out each of your letters and frame them individually or place them together and frame as a whole.

Other fun ideas for word collages are laminated placemats, made through your local copy shop. You can also bring your collage file to a print or copy shop and have it enlarged to a poster. Framed family name collages make great housewarming gifts. A poster with your child’s name makes a fun birthday gift. You can also reduce the collage and print onto card stock to create your own greeting cards.

With or without a digital camera or computer, this project can be done using standard photo prints, scissors and a color copy machine that can enlarge your images to size.