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Family Photo Projects

When you think of mosaics, you probably think of pictures composed of small pieces of stone or tile. But the pieces can be made of other materials, such as, of course, photographs. A "paper mosaic" can be applied to a flat or curved surface to decorate a greeting card, scrapbook page, box, tray, stool  or even be framed and hung on a wall. There are many ways to design mosaics; we'll describe just three to get your imagination soaring.

• Photograph that is somewhat smaller than the surface you will apply it to. You'll probably want to trim it to the same shape as the surface  rectangular, square,circular . . .whatever. For an 8 x 10 surface, for example, size the picture to 7 x 9 inches. This allows room for a border and takes into account that the pieces will be spaced apart.
• Paste 
• Cardstock to apply the mosaic to. Choose a color that will contrast with picture.
• Felt-tipped marking pen
• Ruler 
• Scissors 
• Paper trimmer or craft knife and self-healing cutting mat
  

Equal-Size Square Pieces, Evenly Spaced:

1. If you will be cutting one-inch squares, the photograph's dimensions should be an even number of inches.
 
2. Place the photograph face down
 
3. Make tick marks one inch apart along all four sides of the photo. Draw lines to connect the marks into a grid.
 
4. Number and letter each square, going right to left. In the diagram, you'll see that I used letters to indicate the rows and I used numbers to indicate the individual pieces. Once the pieces are cut, this numbering system will provide you with a guide for reassembling them.
 
5. Cut the squares. You can do the whole thing with scissors, but you'll get more symmetrical squares if you use a paper trimmer or a craft knife and ruler.
 
6. Glue the extreme left and right pieces onto your background. Then place the  other pieces, spacing them about 1/8-inch apart

Unequal-Size Pieces, Fairly Evenly Spaced:

Cut pieces into different sizes and shapes instead of into squares. If you cut them one at a time and paste each one down immediately after cutting, you can omit making a diagram. They can be evenly spaced or not.

Irregularly Shaped Pieces, Placed Randomly:

Cut pieces very irregularly and place them randomly around a central photograph that has not been cut into mosaic pieces. The mosaic pieces do not have to form a continuous picture; they should merely provide a colorful, textured background.

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