I know I’m a little late in the game for this Father’s Day gift idea, but I’m sure you will understand that I had to keep this on the down-low until my husband got his framed photo last weekend (click photo to enlarge). But don’t worry, there are plenty of other special occasions where a photo like this would come in handy for the perfect easy gift. (Easy being relative when there are toddlers involved. Note the Y above. That really wasn’t planned, but Sophia decided she didn’t really like holding that particular letter, and sometimes a tired mommy just wants to get the shot and call it a day!)

I used the letters D-A-D-D-Y with my daughter for Father’s Day, but your kids could just as easily spell out the letters of someone’s name or the word “congrats” or “love” or, well, just about anything! You could clump groups of kids in your child’s class together around the letters of their teacher’s name (or even just “teacher”) for a thoughtful year-end or holiday present. Or, if you wanted to make this sort of thing an annual photo, you could have your child or children each hold a 2-0-0-7 (then 8, then 9). It would be fun to see the growth of your kids from one year to the next. And talk about an easy marker to know what year each photo was taken on quick glance. In fact, I am thinking about making the photo above an annual event, as well. (Chris, act surprised when you get this again next June, OK?)

With any mosaic, the main thing is to remember to take all of the photos in the same light with similar backgrounds in each. I did what I could to get the same background in each shot, but with a running toddler, it was harder than I thought. But since the light on the grass made it the same color in every photo, that gave everything a uniform feel.

I edited the photos in Photoshop and laid it all out in Inkscape, but if you have neither of these programs (or just don’t feel like you have the skills to do it yourself), you can always use the Mosaic Maker, one of FD’s Flickr Toys.

Thinking it over, the options are endless. I’m excited to try this again with my daughter to see what other configurations we can come up with. But for the moment at least, the letter Y and I are going to take a little breather.

For more info on how to create storyboards or mosaics yourself, please check out these past posts on Shooting the Kids:
Creating Storyboards
How to Create Your Own Storyboards