Upcycled Photo Tutorial

What do you do with the boxes of pictures nobody wants? Not the family heirlooms but the more recent pictures with funny faces or blurry shots. I found a large bunch of these in the trash recently and wanted to find a use for them. After searching the internet for ideas, I came up nearly empty handed. I say nearly because a friend directed me to a site. This person modified her pictures but kept some of the background. For my images I did not want to see the background so I made up the rules as I went along.

This is my first tutorial so bear with me.



Start with a picture you want to modify, a tray of water, and a piece of sandpaper.



Leave the picture in water for just about one minute. This softens up the inks.



Use the sandpaper to roughen up the photo. In this example, I sanded quite a bit leaving just the underlayer of colors. I have also done some where I left some of the picture visible.



Wipe off the goo left from the removed colors. You may want to dip it back in the water to clear it off a bit so you can see if you want to sand it again.



Gather your supplies for decorating the picture. Bleach is nice for bleaching out bits. What I forgot to photograph was the automatic lead pencil that I used for doodling on the picture. It is one of those with the metal tip. I used it without lead so I was actually scraping off the paint. Alternatively you can scratch into the picture itself.




Spread on the first layer of paint. I ended up wiping off much of the black for the finished example.



Layer the second layer of paint. I chose a dark red color.



Blot away the excess paint. I don't use paper towels so I blotted with an old flannel rag.



Get creative! You can add as much or as little detail as you like.



Another example. This one has "love" etched into the back. I left this one in more of a rough state.