Wishing You a Haunting Beautiful Halloween

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Decorating for the Holiday with Antique Photographs

I love old photographs, whether they are family keepsakes, or glimpses of strangers that provide windows into the world of the past.  I also believe in living with and using my antique collections.

A whimsical and inexpensive way to decorate for any holiday is to alter pieces from your photo collection to fit the occasion.

Here is How I Do It:

I’m sure everyone who loves antiques already knows that heat and light are two major villains when it comes to preserving antiques.   I do try to store and display my antique photos in safe locations.   However I also think having a back-up copy of your photographs, just in case, is a good idea.  You can either scan your original photographs ( here is where the heat and light comes in), or choosing the better conservation choice – photograph them using a digital camera without a flash.  Once you have a copy of your photographs made and stored you are ready to move on to the fun part of this project.

Method #1 – Take your stored image and using Photoshop alter the image by adding seasonal accessories.  In my case this also means talking one of my very computer and graphic literate family members into doing it for me :).  For this photo I had my son add a witch’s hat to a photograph of my great-grandmother Henrietta Josephine Wallace Prather.  He also layered in part of another photograph of one of our cats sitting on a pumpkin.  No, he didn’t have to Photoshop the cat onto the pumpkin, she just happened to like sitting on pumpkins!  Weird cat… enough said.

Method #2 – Print out a high quality copy of your stored photograph, then get out your pencils, pens and markers and draw in all of the details that you would like to add.  In this example I used a photo that I purchased of two young siblings( because I liked their clothing) and drew in witch’s hats.  After I finished, I re-scanned the altered photo.  However you wouldn’t have to re-scan if you want to just use the photo as is.

What can you do with your altered goodies???  Anything you can imagine.  You can re-size and print your images in dozens of different ways.  Try printing on card stock, vellum, fabric, photo paper, business card stock and labels.

I turned my witchy version of Henrietta Josephine into a Halloween necklace by printing it on vellum and tucking it into a glass locket frame, to which I added a sheer black ribbon.

My two tiny witches look adorable in a black vintage frame and they also made fun necklaces to give to dozen and a half friends.  To make the necklaces I printed the altered photo on fabric that is specially treated and backed for use in an ink jet printer.  I cut out the fabric photos, added a plain piece of fabric for the back, then stitched them together to form a pocket,  I bound the edges with black twill tape which also forms the hanging cord.  I added a velcro dot fastener inside the top edge to secure valuables, then sparkled things up a bit by gluing on glitter accents.  Sew on buttons and other trimmings if you desire.

Happy Halloween, I hope you enjoy creating your own “haunted” photographs!

The instructions, photographs and project ideas in this article are all copyright 2010 by Paula Walton.

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