By Sandi Genovese
Tribune News Service
I don’t know if it’s the longer hours of daylight or more time spent with family, but I seem to double the number of photos I take during the summer. While we are used to passing our phones and tablets back and forth and “liking” our Instagram photos, there is nothing quite like an actual display made (inexpensively) from paper and printed photographs.
My dad will be 95 in July and he wouldn’t know a Facebook page if it bit him in the foot. Ditto for Twitter and Instagram. So I print out photos and weave them into three-dimensional projects he displays around his house. Turns out, they are most appreciated by the grandkids and great grandkids every time they visit. They are now asking to learn how to make them so we are crafting this summer with photos, paper, stickers and die cuts to create 3-D dioramas. They are easy to make and look great sitting on display in any room of your house, and your kids and grandkids will love making them.
The trick to creating a diorama is to graduate the length and height of the paper layers. The front needs a large window cutout and the remaining paper layers can be cut (or torn) to match the theme of the photos. Die cuts or stickers add decoration to the layers along with the most important ingredient — photos. Once all of the layers are embellished (with photos, die cuts, stickers) simply punch a hole in all four corners of the front layer, then punch matching holes in the second, third and fourth layers and attach them together with colored brads.
When you want to retire a display, simply open the prongs of both brads at one end and release the layers. Now that the dimensionality is removed and the layers will lie flat, it is easy to slip them into a page protector until you decide to display them again.
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