Inexpensive Photo Holder

Even though I use this as a photo holder, the young women that I was with (and helped them make their own) decided to use it for other things. Love notes being one of them.....

With that said, let's get to work! I made a trip to one of my favorite places; Home Depot.  That's right, Home Depot is one of my favorite places - it's a crafty person's dream place.!  Who knew a mans DIY store could bring so much happiness to the female persuasion. 

Off to the wood department we go.  I find what I'm looking for a nice 1"x4'x8' piece of wood.  It was just a few bucks, but I needed two pieces for all of the young women.  I take my 2 8 foot pieces to the nice Cutter Man.  As Mr. M. let's him know that we need them cut in 24" pieces, lo and behold, what do I see behind me - a trash can.  What's in the trash can you ask?  The same exact wood that's about to be cut.! HOLD YOUR HORSES Mr. Cutter Man.!  What may I ask are you going to do with this wood?  "Nothing, it's trash".  Maybe to you Mr. Cutter Man, but not to me.  "Can I have it?"  Yes, it's trash, he says.  Awesome.  I got four 24" pieces out of the trash. But that's not the end of the story.  About 10 feet away is a Home Depot cart full of all kinds of wood pieces marked ".51 cents".  That's right, .51 cents, NOT .50 cents, or .55 cents, but .51 cents.  Guess what's in there??  You got it, the same exact pieces of wood.  There are 3 - 4 foot pieces in there.  Booyah!  I walked away with 18 feet of exactly what I needed for a whooping $1.53.  The lesson here?  Ask Mr. Cutter Man at Lowes and Home Depot where their trash bin and discount wood cut cart is, because he says they have them there all of the time.

Ok, I'm really moving on with the tutorial now.  Get a 24" long 1 x 4, sand it down really well.

The next step is by choice.  You can either choose to prime to your wood, or you don't have to.  I put one coat of primer on, then two coats of spray paint.  Primer: Rust-oleum 2x Primer, top coat is Rust-oleum 2 x Strawflower in satin.

While my coats were drying, I spray painted my clothes pins (leave one side unpainted, makes a better hold when you go to glue onto the wood) with Krylon's Classic Gray, in Glossy.  I purchased my clothes pins at Hobby Lobby for $2.10 for a package of 24.  (They were regularly $2.99, but all of their wood items were 30% off).  I used 6 for my own board - two of my young women used 10 and it looked just fine, not too crowded.

Next time is again by choice.  I used Rust-oleum's 2x clear gloss to seal all of the wood.  Because of a shortage of time that I had, I used a high temp glue gun to glue the clothes pins onto the wood.  I normally would have used a wood glue, but the high temp glue gun really held them into place. I am a little funny about spacing...it has to be exact.  As you can see they are perfectly spaced apart, but you can put them however you like.  Ü

And voila, in no time you have a super cute, incredibly easy, and very inexpensive project.  Younger kids could easily do this with adult supervision.  You can decorate it however you would like - rub-ons, stamps, flowers, ect. 

Here are the spray products that I used.   Happy crafting.!