Family Tree Photo Wall Hanging

Materials:

*15 photo charms

*Small images of yourself, your parents, your grandparents, and your great-grandparents

*Solid colored fabric for the tree

*Fabric for the background

*Ribbon

*All purpose adhesive

*Tree pattern

*Chalk

*Scissors

*Tape

*Wooden dowel (I used a section of an old plastic coat hanger in place of the dowel)

Directions:

*Crop pictures to the appropriate size and place them inside the photo charms

*Design or locate a pattern for the tree.  Here is my pattern, and there are many more available online

*Resize the tree pattern if it is not the desired size.  I resized mine to 250% the original size

*Print and assemble the tree pattern.  My pattern took up multiple sheets of paper, so I had to cut it out and tape the pieces together, but, depending on how large you want your tree to be, you may not need to do this

*Lay out the tree pattern on the solid colored fabric.  Trace the outline with chalk, then cut out the tree shape

*Arrange the tree shape on the background fabric, then glue the tree to the background fabric.  Let dry

*Arrange the photo frames on the tree, then glue the photo frames down.  Let dry

*Glue the top of the wall hanging to the wooden dowel.  Let dry

*Glue on some ribbon to use to hang up the wall hanging.  Let dry

What to do if you don’t have a picture of one of your ancestors:

*Do you have some idea of what your ancestor looked like?  You could try constructing a picture (which is what I did).  Alternately, if you have pictures of their parents, siblings, and/or children, you could use photo morphing software to create an image of what this individual may have looked like

*If you have no idea what this individual looked like, you could write their name on a piece of paper and put it in the charm or use an image of a favorite hobby or pastime or something that you feel represents the individual

*If you know nothing about this individual whatsoever, you can always leave off this branch of the family tree or use very generic imagery about the family as a whole or the family name or something like that