Name Photo Collage

Looking for a personal and heartfelt gift idea? What about a photo collage of letters (from someplace special to you) to make up the recipients name – like these name photo collages for my girls.

I / my girls received the sweetest gift the other week; a friend – and fantastic photographer – gifted my girls with photographs of signs that he had taken from all over town. Places in our city that we’ve seen or visited so that each letter is a reminder of our hometown. He compiled a set of these photos and gave each girl the letters that made up their names.

Now I’m a homebody and only leave London for vacations. I even went to college and University here – so these photos mean a lot to me

because they are for my girls and
because they are from my home.

To my girls, these may end up being something they carry with them from place to place if they move away and will serve as a warm memory of the city they left behind.

Yeah right, like I’m ever going to let my girls leave! lol

This sweet and heartfelt gift deserves to be hung in a place of honour, so I decided to make up my own custom frames for each name photo collage.

I have this mat cutting kit, so I measured out the width of each letter, included a ¼” space (½” on Chloë’s) between each and drew lines on the back of my mat board to mark out the size and spacing for the photo collage.

The Logan Mat Cutting Kit is so easy to use (highly recommend it) that all you have to do from here is line up your ruler and cut with the angled utility knife on the left side of each line.

I specifically mentioned the left side because I did it incorrectly in the above photo – which meant that the beveled edge on the white side was inverted.

No worries, easily fixed.

I left a 2 ½” upper, lower and side border – this gave me an overall photo collage height of 10″.

I then taped each letter to the back of the matting.

I measured out my finished mattes and then cut some scrap wood to length. I used mitred corners, but if you are painting your frame like I did, the mitres aren’t terribly noticeable anyways, so you could get away with a straight box frame.

Again, my Bessey strap clamp came in handy to hold everything in place snugly while the wood glue dried – although I did reinforce each corner with a finishing nail as well.

What I should have done here is cut in a small rabbit to set the matted letters into, but instead I tacked the matte into place with utility staples on the back of the frame.

A light sanding, a bit of primer and some black paint and look at how the girls’ name photo collages turned out!

These photo collages aren’t covered with glass – I don’t have luck with glass cutting – but it would be fairly easy to cut and tuck a thin piece of plexiglass into the frame for extra protection.