**CHRISTMAS SPOILER - MOM NO PEEKING!**

Over the years, my mother has inherited much of my grandmother's incredible family photo collection. Some of the photos date back to the early 1900's, and they are sitting in piles in shoeboxes. (I'm sure that the archivists out there are having a heart attack)! She even has my great-grandmother's wedding album where the women are dressed as if they are about to board the Titanic - hats, dresses, gloves, the whole nine yards.

I decided that it was high time that I pulled some of the photos out and transformed them in a way that they would fit into my parents' living space.

Inspired my friend Lisa Congdon's decoupaged plates and an altered plate tutorial by Cathie Filian I set to work.

I bought the plate at Goodwill for a whopping 99 cents. My mom has always loved strawberries, and anything with a strawberry motif on it - so I knew it would be perfect for this project.

It was difficult to choose just one photo, out of so many lovely ones, but I settled on a photo of my mom taking her first steps outside of the farmhouse that she grew up in, in Candia NH. The woman behind her is my Memere, Yvonne, who passed away in 2008. The tagline of my mom's blog is a journal of moving forward, but never forgetting the past. This photo reminded me of the sentiment, but also I just love the sweetness of my baby mom in a giant bonnet!

Here I must insert the requisite apology for the CRAPPY photo of this. My web cam does not do the plate justice at all! (I can't wait for my Nikon to return to me when Matt gets home from tour)!



I surrounded the photocopy of the picture with various washi papers, bits of tissue, an old soap wrapper and gold wrapping paper. It's finished with glossy Mod Podge. All in all this project took me about an hour and a half from start to finish. I'm going to include a plate hanger and hardware to put it up on the wall. There is a perfect empty spot near a pie plate in my mum's kitchen where I think this will fit right in! I hope she likes it - what do you think?