You can make a paper photo quilt by attaching family photos to decorative sheets of paper, and tying them together using yarn or ribbon.
Scrapbook paper looks great for the paper quilt pieces. You can buy scrapbook paper in individual sheets at craft supply stores, or buy it in booklets with assorted colors and patterns. You can pick each sheet to match the photo it will hold (such as snowflakes for a family Christmas picture, beach paper for vacation photos, or party hats for birthday pictures), or make a crazy quilt with leftover paper or whatever’s on sale.
You can also make the paper quilt from plain colored paper or construction paper and let the kids add extra embellishments of drawings or stickers. Or you can even use plain white paper and leave the decorating entirely up to the kids.
You can make the paper quilt any size you want, depending on how much paper and how many photos you have, and where you want to hang it.
Things You’ll Need:
- sheets of scrapbook paper, colored paper, or plain paper
- family photos
- scissors
- glue or tape
- markers
- stickers (optional)
- hole punch
- skein of yarn or spools of ribbon
Make the Paper Quilt Pieces
- Cut pieces of paper, or use full size sheets. You can mix different sizes of paper if you want, but it’s easiest to use pieces that are all the same size so they’ll line up neatly in a quilt.
- Tape or glue a photo to the center of each piece of paper. You can leave the photos rectangular, or cut them into interesting shapes.
- Decorate each sheet of paper using markers, stickers, drawings, and any embellishments you’d like. You may also want to write names, dates, or captions beneath each photo.
Put Together the Quilt
- Lay out the pieces in the order you want them, so that the pieces form a rectangle or grid.
- Rearrange the pieces as needed to get a good combination of colors and photos.
- Punch holes in the edges of each piece of paper where it touches another sheet. (Use 1 hole for very small pieces, 2 holes for medium pieces, and 3 holes for full sheets of paper.) Make sure that the holes in neighboring pieces line up with each other.
- Cut a piece of yarn or ribbon, about 10 inches long.
- Overlap the matching holes in two of the pieces of paper.
- Poke the yarn or ribbon through the overlapping holes.
- Tie the yarn or ribbon in a bow.
- Tie the rest of the pieces of paper together the same way.
- Optional: Tape or tie a piece of yarn or ribbon to the top of the paper photo quilt for hanging.
