Memorial Board: Finished Pictures
These are the finished pictures of the memorial board for my mother, who passed away on December 26, 2021. They show the full-color photos (and a few black-and-white ones) along with headers and text blocks. See the earlier mockups and the text blocks.
The Materials and the Process
I have been working on the memorial scrapbook and memorial board for about a month and a half. I thought about what supplies I would need and ordered them. I scanned many album pages using my Canon MG6100 printer/scanner, collected a few extra photos from other people, and wound up with dozens of images to use. I used Resizr (which displays a much better view of images, but has a lower file size limit) and Img2go (which is harder to see but more tolerant of larger sizes and different file sources) to crop the photo images. I also collected a few text pieces and wrote more to go with the photos. I made mockups to figure out the best layout. Then I had to put everything together, which took all day yesterday.
The trifold display board is 3' x 4' corrugated cardboard, white on the outside, black on the inside. This provides a wide center panel (supposed to be 24" but actually 25" wide) with two narrower side panels (12" wide). The black color made a good backdrop for a memorial board; these display boards come in many colors, although most have a tawdry brown backside with company printing all over it, which makes it look like you cut up a cardboard box but couldn't be arsed to paint both sides. If you want it to look good, make sure the back is a solid color, or plan to cover the mess with paint or paper. It's also possible to get a headerboard that slides over the top of the board to hold it in a partially folded position for display, which also gives you a place to put a title. I didn't do that with this project because it would've blocked the top part of the board.
Regrettably the surface of the display board does NOT accept adhesive well. >_< I used double-sided photo squares to attach everything. My old box was from Pioneer Photo Albums and the full box was from Canson. The adhesive stuck fine to the photo paper and the cardstock, but some of it fell off the display board. The fact that two different brands did this makes me conclude that the board's surface caused the failure. So when the board gets back home, I'll have to see if I can find some other adhesive that will stick better. *ponder* Or try sandpaper to roughen the surface and see if that makes it stick. I have sandpaper around somewhere. Too bad I was too tired to think of that last night. So if you are making anything with a display board, test your adhesives in advance if you can to see what sticks well; I just ran out of time on this project.
Office Depot Brand Dual Color Tri-Fold Project Board, 36" x 48", Black & White
Item #531607 $7.59 each
I printed the photos with my Canon MG6100 printer/scanner using Canon Photo Paper Glossy GP-701 8 1/2" x 11" paper. It produced excellent quality photo prints. I printed the headers and text blocks with the same printer on Georgia Pacific white cardstock (110 pounds). If you do papercrafts, it's a good idea to keep basic stuff like white and black cardstock; I already had those, so I didn't need to buy them for this project. One challenge is that the printer tends to make things slightly or significantly off-true, so getting the angles right required some retrimming. Another is that the blue refused to print for a while, so I wound up having to reprint some of the photos. In the end, though, I think I got a good batch.
I made extensive use of my Zero Hero Centering Ruler CR-18. This is a clear plastic craft ruler with 0 in the middle and 9 inches to each side. The opposite edge has centimeters. In the middle are several lines and holes that are very useful for aligning things. If you do any kind of papercrafts or other projects that involve lining up pieces of stuff, a centering ruler is extremely helpful. You can also find a centering ruler with a grid if that's your preference, but I find this version easier to read.
This came in very handy for marking the photo paper and cardstock to cut apart the individual pieces. I measured a margin around each item, marked distances with dots, then used the side of the ruler to connect the dots. Once I had the margins outlined, I cut out the pieces. I have an X-acto paper cutter that I got on sale years ago, but its bed is slightly misaligned, so I have to cut things in the middle. Here are some better paper cutters; note that the guillotine style is more powerful but the slider style is more precise. Mine does make good straight edges, even on cardstock or photo paper; the challenge is getting the angles right. I did have to re-trim some things to even them up. The photos are trimmed with a 1/4" white border to make them stand out against the black display board.
Next I used the centering ruler to find the middle of each panel, to center pieces in relation to each other, and to measure distances. I also used the inside lines to help orient things, and the edge to push pieces into the proper configuration. Because the 18" ruler was shorter than the center panel (which was supposed to be 24" but was actually 25") I also used a yardstick to set up the headers in the center. Then I could just orient other things based on those headers. I did not go to all the trouble of measuring and marking grid lines on the board itself, because its dimensions weren't quite perfect and I knew my trimming wasn't either. Given imperfect lines, it's better to leave things just a bit organic.
Once I had all the pieces cut out, I positioned them on the board, one panel at a time. Then I flipped over the pieces, put the photo squares on the backs, and flipped them back. I readjusted the spacing. Finally I went through and flipped each item, peeled off the backing paper, checked the positioning one last time, and stuck it in place.
I've often said that I don't have much of my artistic talent in this life; I'm not much good at things like drawing or painting. I do better with crafts. But two things are perfectly intact: my eye for color and my eye for composition. I can use those in things like photography and scrapbooking to create memorable images. Those are the abilities I used to design this memorial board, plus my storytelling skill to shape the narrative of life complete.
Photos of the Finished Memorial Board
The display board is so big that I had to use a stepladder to get good overhead pictures of the panels in progress. Once complete, I had to put it on the floor and use the stepladder again to capture the whole thing spread out flat.
This is the finished center panel. When sticking pieces in place, I started at the top edge with the header, Mom's name and her lifespan dates. Then I did the first of the black-and-white student pictures, top and center, followed by the large color photo of her as a young woman. Next I put the bottom student picture, the right and left ones, last the corner ones. This order made it easier to get the spacing right. From there I moved down to the bottom of the panel and attached the corner pictures, centering the scanned text block "Thoughts on Aging" between them. I put down the two vertical pictures, orienting them to the corner ones below. When I added the two text blocks about favorite flowers and memorial trees, however, I realized that the final printed and trimmed versions didn't fill the space as much as I wanted. I tried several positions, then decided to fill the gap with a sticker from the Tolkien set I bought for the memorial scrapbook, from the Woodland Elf kit. The sticker reads, "I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all of the ages of this world alone." (Arwen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien) The green and brown background of the sticker picks up the same colors in the outdoor photos around it. Last I did the middle row of teacher pictures, orienting them based on other items and using the ruler edge to make them level. I attached the outer two first, then the inner two, and finally the middle two on each half.
This is the finished left side panel. The top section is Family and Friends. I had to re-crop, print, and trim the two left photos in the top row to make them all fit. The bottom section is Grand Adventures. That blue cow Mom is leaning on is from Cows on Parade in Chicago 1999. The bottom left corner is part of a photo album scrapbook page that Mom made, with a note about the NEA event in New Orleans. The bottom right corner has my poem "Gone to Seed."
This is the finished right side panel for Carry on the Work. The pictures are Cooking, Crafts, Education, Environment, Gardening, Hippie, and Space Exploration. Those are the best images with the widest spread of Mom's causes, interests, and activities. Just making this memorial board, I used a lot of skills that I learned growing up with her. There's a short introduction about her activism under the header, and then each photo has its own text block underneath or to the side explaining a little about her work and a few ideas for other people to continue. At the bottom left is her Best Patron badge from the 2022 Rose & Bay Awards with a description of her support for crowdfunded poetry.
This is the complete memorial board. The left panel has Friends and Family plus Grand Adventures. The center panel has Mom's full name and lifespan dates with pictures of her and some memorial tidbits underneath. The left panel has Carry on the Work with her causes, some descriptions, and ideas for other folks to try.
In the end, a memorial board is about storytelling. Grouping pictures together by theme, giving them some chronological order, providing headers and text, that all helps to tell the story. If a memorial board only has pictures jumbled together, much of the context and flow can be lost. So think of the story, if you're making one of these: Life as a finished book, whole and complete only after its conclusion.
Further Resources
Create a Memory Board for a Celebration of Life
How to Create Photo Boards for a Funeral (or Other Celebration)
Memory Boards & Photo Collages for Funerals
How To Make a Funeral Memory Board
Rituals and Memorials for Healing
9 Projects to Remember Your Loved One
Dealing with Grief
Scrapbook Supplies
Project and Display Boards
The Materials and the Process
I have been working on the memorial scrapbook and memorial board for about a month and a half. I thought about what supplies I would need and ordered them. I scanned many album pages using my Canon MG6100 printer/scanner, collected a few extra photos from other people, and wound up with dozens of images to use. I used Resizr (which displays a much better view of images, but has a lower file size limit) and Img2go (which is harder to see but more tolerant of larger sizes and different file sources) to crop the photo images. I also collected a few text pieces and wrote more to go with the photos. I made mockups to figure out the best layout. Then I had to put everything together, which took all day yesterday.
The trifold display board is 3' x 4' corrugated cardboard, white on the outside, black on the inside. This provides a wide center panel (supposed to be 24" but actually 25" wide) with two narrower side panels (12" wide). The black color made a good backdrop for a memorial board; these display boards come in many colors, although most have a tawdry brown backside with company printing all over it, which makes it look like you cut up a cardboard box but couldn't be arsed to paint both sides. If you want it to look good, make sure the back is a solid color, or plan to cover the mess with paint or paper. It's also possible to get a headerboard that slides over the top of the board to hold it in a partially folded position for display, which also gives you a place to put a title. I didn't do that with this project because it would've blocked the top part of the board.
Regrettably the surface of the display board does NOT accept adhesive well. >_< I used double-sided photo squares to attach everything. My old box was from Pioneer Photo Albums and the full box was from Canson. The adhesive stuck fine to the photo paper and the cardstock, but some of it fell off the display board. The fact that two different brands did this makes me conclude that the board's surface caused the failure. So when the board gets back home, I'll have to see if I can find some other adhesive that will stick better. *ponder* Or try sandpaper to roughen the surface and see if that makes it stick. I have sandpaper around somewhere. Too bad I was too tired to think of that last night. So if you are making anything with a display board, test your adhesives in advance if you can to see what sticks well; I just ran out of time on this project.
Office Depot Brand Dual Color Tri-Fold Project Board, 36" x 48", Black & White
Item #531607 $7.59 each
I printed the photos with my Canon MG6100 printer/scanner using Canon Photo Paper Glossy GP-701 8 1/2" x 11" paper. It produced excellent quality photo prints. I printed the headers and text blocks with the same printer on Georgia Pacific white cardstock (110 pounds). If you do papercrafts, it's a good idea to keep basic stuff like white and black cardstock; I already had those, so I didn't need to buy them for this project. One challenge is that the printer tends to make things slightly or significantly off-true, so getting the angles right required some retrimming. Another is that the blue refused to print for a while, so I wound up having to reprint some of the photos. In the end, though, I think I got a good batch.
I made extensive use of my Zero Hero Centering Ruler CR-18. This is a clear plastic craft ruler with 0 in the middle and 9 inches to each side. The opposite edge has centimeters. In the middle are several lines and holes that are very useful for aligning things. If you do any kind of papercrafts or other projects that involve lining up pieces of stuff, a centering ruler is extremely helpful. You can also find a centering ruler with a grid if that's your preference, but I find this version easier to read.
This came in very handy for marking the photo paper and cardstock to cut apart the individual pieces. I measured a margin around each item, marked distances with dots, then used the side of the ruler to connect the dots. Once I had the margins outlined, I cut out the pieces. I have an X-acto paper cutter that I got on sale years ago, but its bed is slightly misaligned, so I have to cut things in the middle. Here are some better paper cutters; note that the guillotine style is more powerful but the slider style is more precise. Mine does make good straight edges, even on cardstock or photo paper; the challenge is getting the angles right. I did have to re-trim some things to even them up. The photos are trimmed with a 1/4" white border to make them stand out against the black display board.
Next I used the centering ruler to find the middle of each panel, to center pieces in relation to each other, and to measure distances. I also used the inside lines to help orient things, and the edge to push pieces into the proper configuration. Because the 18" ruler was shorter than the center panel (which was supposed to be 24" but was actually 25") I also used a yardstick to set up the headers in the center. Then I could just orient other things based on those headers. I did not go to all the trouble of measuring and marking grid lines on the board itself, because its dimensions weren't quite perfect and I knew my trimming wasn't either. Given imperfect lines, it's better to leave things just a bit organic.
Once I had all the pieces cut out, I positioned them on the board, one panel at a time. Then I flipped over the pieces, put the photo squares on the backs, and flipped them back. I readjusted the spacing. Finally I went through and flipped each item, peeled off the backing paper, checked the positioning one last time, and stuck it in place.
I've often said that I don't have much of my artistic talent in this life; I'm not much good at things like drawing or painting. I do better with crafts. But two things are perfectly intact: my eye for color and my eye for composition. I can use those in things like photography and scrapbooking to create memorable images. Those are the abilities I used to design this memorial board, plus my storytelling skill to shape the narrative of life complete.
Photos of the Finished Memorial Board
The display board is so big that I had to use a stepladder to get good overhead pictures of the panels in progress. Once complete, I had to put it on the floor and use the stepladder again to capture the whole thing spread out flat.
This is the finished center panel. When sticking pieces in place, I started at the top edge with the header, Mom's name and her lifespan dates. Then I did the first of the black-and-white student pictures, top and center, followed by the large color photo of her as a young woman. Next I put the bottom student picture, the right and left ones, last the corner ones. This order made it easier to get the spacing right. From there I moved down to the bottom of the panel and attached the corner pictures, centering the scanned text block "Thoughts on Aging" between them. I put down the two vertical pictures, orienting them to the corner ones below. When I added the two text blocks about favorite flowers and memorial trees, however, I realized that the final printed and trimmed versions didn't fill the space as much as I wanted. I tried several positions, then decided to fill the gap with a sticker from the Tolkien set I bought for the memorial scrapbook, from the Woodland Elf kit. The sticker reads, "I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all of the ages of this world alone." (Arwen, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien) The green and brown background of the sticker picks up the same colors in the outdoor photos around it. Last I did the middle row of teacher pictures, orienting them based on other items and using the ruler edge to make them level. I attached the outer two first, then the inner two, and finally the middle two on each half.
This is the finished left side panel. The top section is Family and Friends. I had to re-crop, print, and trim the two left photos in the top row to make them all fit. The bottom section is Grand Adventures. That blue cow Mom is leaning on is from Cows on Parade in Chicago 1999. The bottom left corner is part of a photo album scrapbook page that Mom made, with a note about the NEA event in New Orleans. The bottom right corner has my poem "Gone to Seed."
This is the finished right side panel for Carry on the Work. The pictures are Cooking, Crafts, Education, Environment, Gardening, Hippie, and Space Exploration. Those are the best images with the widest spread of Mom's causes, interests, and activities. Just making this memorial board, I used a lot of skills that I learned growing up with her. There's a short introduction about her activism under the header, and then each photo has its own text block underneath or to the side explaining a little about her work and a few ideas for other people to continue. At the bottom left is her Best Patron badge from the 2022 Rose & Bay Awards with a description of her support for crowdfunded poetry.
This is the complete memorial board. The left panel has Friends and Family plus Grand Adventures. The center panel has Mom's full name and lifespan dates with pictures of her and some memorial tidbits underneath. The left panel has Carry on the Work with her causes, some descriptions, and ideas for other folks to try.
In the end, a memorial board is about storytelling. Grouping pictures together by theme, giving them some chronological order, providing headers and text, that all helps to tell the story. If a memorial board only has pictures jumbled together, much of the context and flow can be lost. So think of the story, if you're making one of these: Life as a finished book, whole and complete only after its conclusion.
Further Resources
Create a Memory Board for a Celebration of Life
How to Create Photo Boards for a Funeral (or Other Celebration)
Memory Boards & Photo Collages for Funerals
How To Make a Funeral Memory Board
Rituals and Memorials for Healing
9 Projects to Remember Your Loved One
Dealing with Grief
Scrapbook Supplies
Project and Display Boards