A Picture Paints a Thousand Words…

What I love most about special occasions and events, is that not only is it the perfect excuse to get all of your loved ones together (something we are all guilty of not doing regularly enough!) it is the ideal time to start getting creative and think about keepsakes for the person or persons who the occasion/event is about.  I recently organised a birthday dinner to celebrate my mums 60^th birthday, and the night before the big event my brothers girlfriend suggested putting old pictures up of my mum.  I thought this was a fantastic idea, however the venue had a lot of restrictions in place which meant that blu-tacking up a few hastily printed pictures wasn’t going to be an option.  So thinking caps on we thought, how about framing old pictures and having these on the tables, so the day of the event off we went to source some frames.  However as we started looking the idea evolved even more, and we (my sister and I) came across a lovely black picture frame with a mount that had space for 9 pictures – the light bulb flashed!

How about having one single frame, with a selection of pictures from over the years that could then easily be kept as a keepsake after the party?  It was the perfect solution, a way to show pictures of my mum from over the years in a tasteful way (and without upsetting the venue) but that after the event could be kept and treasured as a token of the love felt for my mum from all of the guests at her dinner.  So the picture was used as part of the cake display at the beginning of the evening and as a talking point for the guests, as they reminisced over shared memories and then, after tummies were full I passed the frame round the tables along with a permanent marker and asked the guests to leave a note on the glass.  The picture is now hanging at my mums house, as the special keepsake it was intended to be.

A 60th Birthday Keepsake

This simple, cheap and effective keepsake is the ideal way to give something special for your loved one – without breaking the bank.  But a couple of tips and hints:

• Avoid using the originals, try, where possible to get copies and use these instead
• Use acid-free adhesives to glue the pictures in place – nothing worse than the pictures slipping as soon as you stand the frame up!
• Go for a glass marker pen, rather than a standard permanent marker – this will ensure that no ink will accidently rub off (even if its permanent, this might still happen on the glass)
• Try and go for old pictures that contain faces of your guests as well, this will encourage the sharing of memories and help break ice at the beginning of an evening

The beauty of the Picture Frame keepsake, is that it really can be used for any event.  From a Birthday dinner, as I did, to a wedding where the picture frame shows the story of how the couple got together – the possibilities are endless…..