Baby Keepsake Ornament

Today I have a fun baby project for you!  This will hopefully inspire you to check out the wooden products aisle at the craft store!  I typically am found in the paper crafting aisle, but, one day I was lured to another part of the store by a sale tag and I was thrilled to find CUTE wooden shapes just begging to be altered.  I quick scooped up an airplane and a cloud wooden shape along with a handful of other inspiring items and headed happily to check out.  At my store, these shapes were 15 cents a piece! WOW!

Supplies:

• wooden craft shapes
• Mod Podge (I like Matte)
• Spray acrylic clear sealer
• acrylic paint
• digital kit in theme with your shapes – I used the FABULOUS Flight of Fancy by Elise Hansen
• foam brushes
• buttons
• twine
• permanent ink pad ( I used StazOn)
• Permanent ink pen
• pencil
• glossy accents
• clothespins

Let’s get started!

Based on the measurements of the wood pieces, I cut and pasted the images from the digital kit that I needed into a Word document.  I resized the designer papers so I had just what I needed and no waste.  I also pulled in the airplane image and two banners.  The “special delivery” letters and the “Name:” and “Born:” were text boxes that I could move and layer over the banners.  The Special Delivery, while destined to be a message in the cloud shaped sky, was left to print on the white cardstock so I could hand trim those letters to be small rectangles.  Once I had everything I needed, I hit print and I was on my way.

I wasn’t sure if my inkjet printer ink would be able to withstand a layer of mod podge without smearing so I sprayed a portion of my printed sheet with a fine mist of clear acrylic spray.  The Scrapbook Spray was something I had on hand, but a plain old clear finish spray paint would do the trick as well I think.

It’s very slight, but if you enlarge the above photo, you will see that the “Born:” type that was not first sprayed with an acrylic sealer smeared when I foam brushed on the Mod Podge.  I set about clear sealing the rest of the page and reprinted the “Born:” banner.

Once everything was clear sealed, I brushed on Mod Podge in smooth, same direction strokes.  Be as consistent as possible since your stroke lines will be present when the Mod Podge dries.

While your page of Mod Podged items is drying, paint your wooden shapes.  I used acrylic craft paint I had on hand.  I painted two coats on the back of the shapes as this layer will show in the finished product.  I also painted the edges and towards the middle of the front of the shapes.

Be sure to get the edges painted and clean off any pools of paint in the crevices.

Once the images and the Mod Podged page are TOTALLY dry, trace the shapes on the portions of the printed image sheet that will serve as the background paper to the wooden shapes.  The Mod Podged image sheet, once dry, takes on a feel of wallpaper and is very easy to write on and cut out.

Of course, since my images were already painted, I had to ERASE the pencil marks after tracing.  WHOOPS!  If possible, trace your images onto the dry mod podged image sheet before painting them!

So here they are, painted wood shapes and their matching cutout papers.

Next, apply a layer of Mod Podge to the front of the wooden shape and smooth the matching paper image over the top.

Let the images dry completely on the wooden shapes.

I sponged Timber Brown Staz on around the edges for a more rustic feel.

Next I applied the small images by brushing Mod Podge to the back of the cut out images and smoothing them on with a baby wipe to help clean up the edges where extra Mod Podgehad escaped.  A damp paper towel would work well too.  A final layer of Mod Podge was applied to the whole shape to further seal the project.

Add fine details with a slick writer or other permanent marker…in this case, black lines to connect the “Special Delivery” sign.

Next I chose some coordinating buttons and a length of twine to string my items together.

I wove the hemp twine in and out of the buttons down to the bottom of the airplane.  Any open button holes were filled with a short piece of twine and tied for decoration.

Slide the buttons to make room for the cloud and the airplane and then use invisible tape to temporarily hold the images in place.  I held the string of items against a wall to see that everything was balanced the way I was hoping.

Carefully fold back areas of tape to clothespin the twine to the shapes in preparation for the liquid glue.

With the twine arranged and held in place, use glossy accents to run a bead of glue down the length of twine on the backs of the cloud and the airplane.

Here’s how it looks right after applying the glue.  Then leave it alone while it dries.  Mine took about an hour but more dry time would be better

That’s it!  Here it is hanging on baby’s wall!  The parents can personalize it with a sharpie marker or you can deliver it personalized by adding another layer of mod podge and little letters like in the cloud above.    This keepsake easily moves from gift bag or box, to wall, to baby’s scrapbook or ???  So many fun possibilities with this one!  A note: wood contains lignin which produces an acidic environment as it ages.  Even though this piece is well sealed with mod podge and paint, take care in allowing wood to touch irreplaceable photos in scrapbooks.  With the ease of digital photography, I feel very free in using almost anything in my scrapbooks but I felt it fair to issue the warning just in case

I hope this tutorial finds it’s way to your creative space.  I can’t wait to see what else can be done with these wooden shapes as this is, no doubt, only a few of the many, many wonderful ideas out there.  Please feel free to ask any questions that I have not answered here in the comments or on my blog.  I will be happy to answer them. 

How about a giveaway?  This project will be part of the door prize gifts that will be given away to lucky random posters throughout the week.  Please enter you comment here to be eligible.  Also, you can get an extra chance to win if you blog, twitter, or mention our baby shower on Facebook and link us up just like we did for NSD - please spread the word about what’s happening here at The Hybrid Chick

Thanks so much for visiting today and I hope you’ll be back for MORE amazing gift and project ideas this week and next, all about sweet babies!  Can you smell the pink lotion and baby powder yet?

Other Articles by DanaGustafson:

• Hybrid Shrink Plastic and YOU! - October 14th, 2009
• The icing on the cake... - September 18th, 2009
• Gift Tags Galore! - September 9th, 2009
• Paper Tussy Mussy - August 21st, 2009
• It's School Time! {Altered clipboards} - July 17th, 2009