Hybrid Project ~ Framed Message Board

Friday, May 11, 2012

Hello!  It’s Casharina here and I’m bringing you a new hybrid project and sticking true to myself, it’s another EASY peasy project that anyone can do, while still being beautiful and useful when finished!   Today I’m making a message board.  These can be done in a variety of ways and designs and can be used for all sorts of things:  I’m thinking a menu board, a dry erase calendar, simple personalized board to keep track of a schedule, or notes from a teacher!  I created this design to give to my husband’s host teacher as he just finished his student teaching (CONGRATS hubby!).  She was a wonderful mentor and very helpful to him.  I am also planning on making one of these for my little girl’s teacher as an end of the year gift!!  So let’s get started shall we…(that’s what my kiddo would say; in a deep but sophisticated voice!  Lol)

Items needed:

• Picture frame (WITH glass-to make it dry erase!)
• Photo paper & printer (or use a photo lab/professional printer)

 To make this you will need ANY picture frame…that’s right, this is your board you can make it as big or small as you’d like.  I have made up to an 11×14 design and sent it off to be printed, but you could make one to suit your needs and just have it printed at any photo lab.

 You will want to have your frame ready for a print…that means if you’re like me and you LOVE to find good deals at the Goodwill or junk store, you’ll want to clean, refinish, and paint your frame before creating the goodie to go in it!

 For this design, since I had put off creating a gift until the night before, yah I know BAD!!  But in my defense we went camping, and then had Easter stuff, and I just kinda forgot about it, please don’t tell me I’m the only one to do that, right!?  Anyway for this design I created mine as an 8×10 and placed it into a matted 11×14 frame.

 Here comes the EASY PEASY part!!  Just open a document to the size you need printed.  I opened an 8×10 document at 300 dpi. Create your design.  

For my teacher gift I used the Hopscotch kit.  The kit worked perfectly for what I wanted to accomplish.  SAVE your work and THEN highlight all layers.  I like to place all layers into a folder and then duplicate that folder and THEN merge the layers. I’m ALWAYS afraid that I’m going to merge the layers and then accidently press SAVE when I go to close it.  So this way even if I do, I will have only one group merged but still have the others open and adjustable for later use.

 After merging the all layers together, crop the outside of the layout, so that the image is exactly an 8×10.  I could have just printed from here, but you guys know me and I don’t like to cut anything that I don’t have to.  So, I decided to open a new page as an 8.5×11. I then duplicated the merged copy to the 8x5x11 layout.  I was then able to place the merged design at the top left hand corner, leaving me with only two sides that needed cut.

 Print your design.  Now, if you’re printing at home I recommend using your choice of photo paper.  I use Office Depot brand Standard Photo paper and have used their professional paper as well and highly recommend them.  They work GREAT for hybrid projects especially when using Mod Podge.  

 If your design is larger than your printer can print, you would need to follow each of the above steps and then save the design as a high quality JPEG and send/take it to your photo lab to be printed.

Once complete, place it in your preferred frame and voila, you’ve got a BEAUTIFUL personalized message board!!  I really don’t think it can get much easier than that!!

Make sure you place it under glass so that you can simply use dry erase markers on it! 

 In the past I’ve also made a calendar print for my BFF.  I used a BLANK calendar page from the Shoppes Two Page Calendar Vol. 4 July’s Bottom and had it printed…she can now use it all year long as a dry eraser calendar!

I hope you have all enjoyed this post and get some use out of it, be sure to share it in the gallery if you make your own DIY message board!! – We’d love to see it!!  Check back Monday for Layout of the Week!

CasharinaHybrid Projects, Uncategorized 6 Comments