Materials:

Plant images and names cut from your seed catalogues or magazines

Cardboard or balsa wood rectangles to fit your images

Wooden tongue depressors, popsicle sticks or stainless steel skewers as stakes to mount your plant tags and poke them into ground

Elmer’s Glue-All or Mod Podge

Scissors

Small bowl of water

Acrylic paint (optional)

Prep surface: If you are using balsa wood, you may need to sand off any rough edges. Do so gently to avoid splintering wood. Then wipe away any dust with a damp sponge.

Decide if you want a colored background. The balsa wood showing through is a nice look by itself – kind of like old-fashioned orange crates. If you want color, apply two coats of acrylic paint, allowing two hours drying time for each coat. If there are any rough spots, sand again; and wipe away any dust as before.

Decoupage

This is a great tip from Durwin Rice. If you are using images with color on both sides (like from a catalogue or magazine), soak each image in a small bowl of water until it stops curling and floats freely without wrinkles.

PRINTING YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS AT HOME Convenience and instant gratification are two popular reasons for printing your digital photos at home. Depending on your printer, you can print directly from your camera or from your memory card in most cases. Or if you want to touch up your photos first you can copy them to your computer, use your photo editing software (I like Photoshop Elements 3.0) to enhance your images, and then print right from your graphics program. You don't have to make an extra stop to drop off your photo memory card at photofinisher or drugstore and then return to pick up your prints, and you save shipping fees online photo services charge.

However, printing your photos on your home printer may be more expensive than you realized. The per-print price can approach $1 per picture when you factor in cost of buying a photo printer, high quality photo paper and lots of color ink cartridges. If you print a lot of photos you'll go through ink cartridges and paper rather quickly, which gets expensive, especially if you make mistakes and have to reprint. If you use inexpensive or off-brand paper, you will likely find that your photos may start to fade or discolor within a few months. According to industry experts, if you print at home, use same brand name paper as your printer manufacturer (i.e. if you have a Canon printer, use Canon photo paper). Your prints will be better quality and last longer.