Photo+wood transfer love

Every mother's day I make something with a "Love" theme for my mama. It started with some decorated hunk of wood I made when I was 10 or so with LOVE spelled out in screws & washers. I even used the drill by myself. I don't know how that worked out. I've also made a collaged flower pot and a love photo frame. My Mom always loves the homemade gifts best, of course (what mother wouldn't?) I love making her something new each year that she can hold onto forever. It's the very least thing I can do to make her smile and remind her that I love her always.
This year I was eager to try out this wood photo transfer from Photojojo and this project seemed perfect.


 In total, this project cost me about $25, and that's without the board. I'm happy with the way it turned out, it looks great in our living room, and my mom loves it, which is the most important. A lot of faces and elbows and bodies were sacrificed during the rubbing away step. It seemed that no mater how light I scrubbed, tears were inevitable.

The tutorial was in no way misleading- I'm sure this really would be easy peasy on a smaller scale. But this was a little chaotic. I have to take into consideration that I had only a small amount of time to finish, and also that the medium I used was a Super heavy Matte Gel Medium, rather than a regular "Matte gel medium". I watered it down, but maybe it still played a roll in this tricky process. However, it still hasn't scared me away! I plan to make many things in the future, with time on my side, and a lot smaller canvas.

Tips & answers:
- Don't go too big for your first attempt unless you have patience, patience, patience. (This board was about a foot tall, and maybe 3 feet wide?)
- I printed 16 laser print photos at Office max for $10 (I was puzzled where to laser print, turns out office max is a win)
- Make sure you let your project sit the full 8 hours
- Don't rub with a rag over faces!!
- Rub with the grain for clean look, against it for distressed look
- When I put my coat of mod podge on, there were still some fuzzies. (a lot in some places) The mod podge made it mostly disappear, keep that in mind before you scrub so hard that your photos come off!

I hope all of you mamas had a wonderful Mother's day.