DIY Instagram Photo Banner Graduation Gift

How to DIY an Instagram Banner for an Easy Gradution Gift

When I shared my other DIY gift ideas I mentioned I was working on a special graduation gift for my sons. I had one finish elementary school and one finish middle school last week and while those small milestones don’t warrant a major gift, I thought it would be fun to give them something special to each remember their year by.

I created banners for their rooms using photos of them taken throughout the year. This was another idea that I got from Lauren’s book Thinking Outside The Gift Box book. I loved that these would be personalized for my boys, and since they both had some significant accomplishments this year, this was an easy way to document all they did.

Creating the banners was so simple, though you will want to start a few days ahead to allow for shipping of photos, unless you plan to print them yourself.

Here is a quick step by step:

1–I went through my phone photos and emailed myself all the photos I wanted to use from the year. I tried to pick things that were special to each of my sons throughout the year. Then I used PicMonkey to resize each photo and then used the “polaroid” frame option–this was a little throwback touch which I thought made the banners much more fun!

{we have a PicMonkey tutorial here, it works like Photoshop but for much less $!}

2–I saved all the photos and uploaded them to MPIX and printed them as 5×5’s. They arrived in the mail a few days later.

3–Once I had all the photos I laid them out in chronological order on my floor and then taped each one to baker’s twine to create a banner. That part was quick and easy 🙂

I wrapped them up and gave them to my boys after their respective graduations. I will admit that my fifth grader wasn’t quite as impressed as my eighth grader was with his (his is shown below).

My older son told me how cool it was several times the next day so I consider it a win! I think it was due to the fact that I screen-captured all his Instagram photos {on an iPhone you just press the power button with the home button and it will create a photo} then I emailed them to myself to be sure I had all his IG photos too. Since at his age they chronicle their lives on social media this gave me access to pictures that he or his friends took in addition to the family ones.

My other son’s banner takes up nearly his whole bedroom wall since he does a ton of sports, I had all sorts of activities to fit in his so even though he doesn’t have Instagram (yet) I still had plenty to work with. While he may not have found it quite as cool as his brother did, having the whole year to look back on is a great way for him to remember everything he accomplished this year.

Now that their graduations have passed we’re in summer mode–though it is going to take a few days to decompress from all the end of the year activities, I am more then ready for some downtime!

We have a ton going on blog-wise right now–did you enter to win the Jord Watch giveaway yet? It’s the perfect Father’s Day gift!

Also–we have teamed up with a group of fabulous IG/bloggers to GIVEAWAY a $250 HomeGoods gift card on Instagram this week. All you have to do is head on over to IG and post a picture of your summer decor with the hashtag #mysummerstyle and you are entered to win! We’ll pick our favorite shot and it will be displayed on all our IG feeds AND the winner will receive the $250 prize. How fun is that? Don’t miss out–see more in our Instagram feed HERE!

Enjoy your day everyone 🙂

XO,