In January 2020, Jeff England dropped by for a quick visit. Jeff is a friend who used to live in College Station but now lives in Smoot Wyoming. He was in town for a business trip. While Jeff and I visited, he asked me about the family clock I made that is hanging on the wall of our playroom. As a result, he and I talked about unique gifts. He told me about a common friend who gave his wife a picture mosaic as a gift.
I did a bit of internet searching and found the Picture Mosaics tool to help me create a custom mosaic to give Annette for a gift. After exploring the picture mosaics website and deciding on the product I wanted to purchase, I started reviewing the scrapbooks and other pictures that Annette and I had collected since we started dating.
When we got married, digital cameras did not exist. Thus, we did not own one. We purchased our first digital camera in 2008 shortly after Addison was born. Thus, I only had digital photos for 12 of our 30 years together. As a result, I decided to scan in the print photos from the family scrapbooks that Annette created to document our history. Across the next several weeks, I scanned 1019 photos from the scrapbooks.
In total, I added 2400 photos to the mosaic collection. I chose three different photos to consider as the source photo for the mosaic project. I was having a hard time deciding which of the three photos to use. So, I asked the four oldest kids to help me choose. They all gave me some good feedback and I chose the blue shirt photo taken in Summer 2019 shortly after Jason returned from his mission.
I purchased a print version (48" X 27") of the final mosaic. We framed it and hung it on the "Blessings" wall in the master bedroom.
The video above has a slightly different version of the final mosaic because the Picture Mosaic designer did some custom placement of pictures to improve our final print version. You can also explore an online version of the mosaic.
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