One Year Old Photo Prop

 My little guy recently turned one.  It is such an exciting time! We are so lucky to have talented people around us and because of that we have beautiful photos made by a fantastic photographer.  While we were brainstorming for a location and other ideas for the big 1-year-old photo-shoot she suggested that it would be cute if he were holding a number 1.  Now I know I could find such a thing pre-made in a craft store or online.  But I thought it might be more fun to make mine.  So I did!  I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Here is what I made in action:

Here is how I made it:
You will need the following things.
1 - Scissors
2 - Box cutter and/or x-acto blade
3 - Glue (I used elmers)
4 - Template (I used a number 1 I found online but you can use anything as your template)
5 - Craft tape (also called washi tape)
6 - Cardboard (I had much to choose from and opted to recycle cardboard from a diaper box and from a shipment from an online purchase)
7 - Tape

Start by cutting out your template and placing it on your cardboard - like so:

Then I taped my template to my cardboard and cut it with my box cutter and scissors.  The quantity of cardboard number 1's I cut out was based on the thickness of my cardboard and on how thick I wanted my end product to be.  I ended up cutting out three number 1's from cardboard.

Next, I added glue to the back of the first and second cardboard number 1 and stacked all three together.

Finally, I placed them on a flat surface on a sheet of wax paper.  I placed a sheet of wax paper on top of them as well and placed several heavy books on top to press them together while they dried.  I left them this way overnight.

The next day I removed my thick cardboard number 1 and started decorating.  There are any number of ways to do this.  You could wrap it with yarn or ribbon, spray paint it, cover it with scrapbook paper, and so on.  I chose to use craft tape (washi tape) and using varying lengths I wrapped my number 1.  I found that using varying lengths to tape until all of the cardboard was covered allowed flexibility for covering corners and edges and it also added texture and interest.

Happy crafting!