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How to make a unique tile picture for less than $3!

by yngla on December 15, 2007 Table of Contents intro: How to make a unique tile picture for less than $3! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 1: Getting started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 2: Picking and editing you photo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 3: Dividing your picture into smaller elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 4: Printing your photo on tissue paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 5: Cutting the parts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 6: Time to use the glue! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 7: Finished! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Customized Instructable T-shirts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 6 6 6 6 7

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

intro: How to make a unique tile picture for less than $3!
Want to make a unique piece of art to decorate your empty walls? Or to make the perfect gift for the grandparents or in-laws? Here is a simple way to make this modern and minimalistic design using just tiles, tissue paper and a laser printer. It is time to amaze your friends...

step 1: Getting started

You will need: 1. Nice photo 2. Computer 3. Nine pieces of 10x10cm tiles 4. Five sheets of printer paper 5. Five strips of 10x20cm tissue paper 6. Double sided adhesive 7. Printer 8. Exacto knife 9. Decoupage glue 10. Paintbrush

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

step 2: Picking and editing you photo

First you have to pick a nice photo. Make sure you pick a photo in which you will not cut away vital parts (such as eyes) later on. Chose which part of the photo you want to use and cut out a square. Put the square in a new document. On this new document you can: Change image size to 30cmx30cm. Desaturate the image. Change brightness and contrast until you get the desired result. You might want use the paintbrush to get rid of unwanted details in the background. You might want to reverse the picture, otherwise you will end up (like me) with a mirror image of your original photo.

step 3: Dividing your picture into smaller elements

In order to print your paper you will have to take a few extra steps. Make a grid on your edited photo with lines at 10 and 20 cm. Cut out the squares between the lines. Cut 0,5 cm away from the lines! Otherwise you will end up with a distorted face in the end. Paste the squares into 5 new documents, 2 in each except for the last one which will have just one square. If needed, rotate the new documents to make them printable.

Image Notes 1. This document will need to be rotated 2. Note spaces between squares. Makes it a lot easier later on!

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

step 4: Printing your photo on tissue paper

Obiously it is hard to put tissue paper into an ordinary laser printer. This is a nice trick to make it work. Take your strips of 10 x 20cm tissue paper. Put double sided adhesive on upper and lower side. Attach to middle of printer paper. Do NOT use common tape as it will melt in your laser printer and make it useless (take my word for granted, I have tried) Print the 5 documents on the 5 pieces of tissue paper

step 5: Cutting the parts

No need for longer explanation. Cut all nine squares. Try not to cut your fingers as well.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

Image Notes 1. This is the reversed photo, ie printed side down, to be facing tiles.

step 6: Time to use the glue!

Put decoupage glue on tiles. Adhere tissue paper. If you want a softer look, adhere pieces with printed side facing tile. (That is the reason you might want to reverse it earlier). For a more detailed look, adhere printed side out. When dry, add at least two more layers of decoupage glue on top of tissue paper.

Image Notes 1. This is the reversed photo, ie printed side down, to be facing tiles.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

step 7: Finished!
Now you might want to put tiles into a frame or just stick to a piece of board and put on your wall. Good luck!

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http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

Comments
50 comments Add Comment view all 152 comments
Dec 16, 2008. 10:23 AM REPLY

davedirt says:
Wonderful instructable. Here is the one I did for my wife. Thank you.

tnj0201 says:
Wow Dave! What an amazing job!! I can't wait to make on myself!!

Feb 14, 2009. 6:05 PM REPLY

yngla says:
Its beautiful!

Dec 16, 2008. 1:43 PM REPLY

eclecticderby says:
This is something i made for my friend:

Dec 28, 2008. 1:46 AM REPLY

tnj0201 says:
Really great!

Feb 14, 2009. 6:00 PM REPLY

yngla says:
Really nice! I like the picture a lot!

Dec 28, 2008. 4:06 AM REPLY

movimakerman says:

Dec 22, 2008. 8:40 PM REPLY Hi there. I had a lot of fun doing this project. Even though it took a lot of time, it was well worth it in the end. Here is a project I did for my girlfriend as a Christmas gift. I can't wait to give it to her tomorrow! It is a little eh, due to the fact it was my first one, but it came out pretty good over all. It was surprisingly cheap to make, each tile is only 14 cents each, so it's great to do around the house as art. I would even recommend someone trying to make a larger six by three panoramic picture. Well, anyways, here is my finished product. Enjoy.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

tnj0201 says:
Nicely done. . .how did she like it?

Feb 14, 2009. 5:59 PM REPLY

KRACONNECTION says:
Hi,nice project but i dont know where u can get these tiles for 14 cents so could u tell me

Dec 23, 2008. 7:14 PM REPLY

Ravenelle says:
The tiles are 14 cents at Home Depot.

Jan 26, 2009. 5:32 PM REPLY

beechbaby says:

Jan 27, 2009. 4:09 AM REPLY I made one for my husband's birthday and it turned out wonderfully! I mounted the tiles in a large shadow box which helps to mask any wrinkles in the tissue. I think I'd like to try a color photo next. Thanks for the great tutorial!

postmans says:

Jan 26, 2009. 2:03 PM REPLY No tape needed: I used a wide glue stick on the paper, applied the tissue, waited for it to dry. Worked awesome in my injet and my laser printer. No bunching and less creases.

trancuan says:
Any programs for a Mac?

Dec 30, 2008. 5:39 PM REPLY

frenzyquilter says:

Dec 30, 2008. 3:34 PM REPLY If you use an inkjet printer, won't the printing smear when you apply the decoupage glue? I'd really like to try this but only have an inkjet at the house so I'd like to hear if anyone has successfully done this project using an inkjet print.

jbattat says:

Dec 19, 2008. 8:18 PM REPLY I absolutely love this instructable. Thanks so much to the author and to all commenters who have shared their advice and their final products. Very, very cool. I just finished making a 3x3 tile of my newborn nephew as an xmas gift. In the process I learned a few things that others might find useful: 1. Inkjet printers work just fine. I was worried that the ink would bleed, but it does not. The images look just fine on the tissue paper. 2. Be careful feeding tissue paper through a printer. I initially tried doing this project with my laser printer, using the manual feed tray. I used double sided sticky tape to hold the tissue paper just as the original poster did. But the paper feed rollers devoured the tissue paper anyway. On my laser printer, there's a roller right in the middle of the page, which is coated in rubber. The roller grabs ahold of the tissue paper and then it's game over. My manual feed tray no longer works... The inkjet printers that I've seen grip the edges of the paper. Since there's no tissue paper at the edge, there's less chance for disaster. Another bonus of the inkjets is that they tend to feed the paper straight through, rather than going through several rollers. This means less chance for tissue paper eating. 3. Holding the tissue paper onto the printer paper. On the inkjet printer that I used (a cheapie-McCheap Dell 720), I was able to use regular clear scotch tape (single sided) to tape the edges. Much like this person did. 4. Adhesives and wrinkling Following the advice of a previous commenter, I used polyurethane to hold the tissue paper to the tile. Overall this worked quite well. I learned a few tricks along the way though. Brush a thin coat of the poly right onto the tile and then gradually lower down the tissue paper (as the original poster shows in step 6). Once the paper is fully on the tile, you can push it around with your fingers to tweak the alignment. You may notice some wrinkles or air bubbles. Fear not. If you let the poly dry for 10-15 minutes so that it is tacky (rather than liquidy) then you can smooth over the top of the tissue paper using a credit card (or something similar). This will get the air bubbles and wrinkles out and the tissue paper will lie very flat on the tiles. Wrinkles are especially annoying when using the poly because excess poly tends to live under the wrinkle, and the poly has a yellowish tint, so the wrinkles appear as yellow streaks. Not nice at all, but fully avoidable. Next time I do this, I'm going to try to use decouppage (or perhaps just Elmers white glue heavily diluted with water). Hopefully my experience can help others that choose to do this project. I had a great time, and highly recommend it!

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

yngla says:
Beautiful baby! And lots of useful ideas too!

Dec 20, 2008. 4:40 AM REPLY

KRACONNECTION says:
where did u get your tiles and what kind of tiles are they?

Dec 23, 2008. 7:25 PM REPLY

fabulous08 says:
hey, did u apply a 2nd coating on the tissue? wow that's a cute baby!!!

Dec 20, 2008. 12:49 AM REPLY

cmonstar says:

Dec 23, 2008. 12:08 PM REPLY So after doing a little research, it would seem that if you are worried about the finish scratching off you could go with an acrylic varnish after the two coats of decoupage. This is just my assumption, i haven't seen it, merely heard of the idea. Thought it would be cool to suggest! Nice instructable :) i'll be finishing mine up tomorrow :) if i decide to go with the varnish i will post a pic!

Mommajewel1 says:

Dec 20, 2008. 8:04 AM REPLY Can someone help?? I tried doing it in Gimp and IrfanView and can not get the grid to work out. Is there any way I could send someone the picture and they could help???

ClayOgre says:

Dec 23, 2008. 7:34 AM REPLY In Gimp, you could use the built in grid function, it's under File>Preferences somewhere, I think. You could also use guides. Do Image>Guides>Add new Guide by percent and place them accordingly. Then just use the rectangular select tool to drag out a selection inside each grid. Make the selection the same size as the grid section (it will snap to fit the grid), then shrink the selection Select>Shrink.

husiesan says:

Dec 22, 2008. 4:07 PM REPLY I made it for my parents and it looks great! Only I am now at a loss as to how to frame it. Could someone explain to me how I can do this? THANKS!

movimakerman says:

Dec 19, 2008. 10:15 PM REPLY THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS INSTRUCTABLE!! I made one of me and my girlfriend's homecoming picture for her as a christmas gift. :D Im making it right now. TIme to put the paper on the tile. BYE

fabulous08 says:

Dec 18, 2008. 9:21 AM REPLY hey i tried making a 30" X30" picture today (it was a chore. 25 tiles to handle ><) and i had trouble applying another coat of glue onto the tissue coz the glue simply weigh the tissue down and i cant 'paint' the glue without tearing the tissue big time. any idea how could i solve this problem if i were to make another piece?

schizosmurf says:
I'm curious as to how it would turn out using regular printing paper?

Dec 18, 2008. 5:25 AM REPLY

KJS says:
This is really cool! :) I was wondering if it's possible to print it in colours? Perhaps simplified, to give a Andy Warhol kind of look?

Dec 18, 2008. 1:25 AM REPLY

tanyaltj says:

Dec 14, 2008. 4:02 PM REPLY This is a great idea. I would really like to use a 12x12 tile and make a hot plate or trivet. Does anyone have any idea about making it heat proof after gluing a photo onto it.

arobz says:
I can't find a laser printer to save my life. Anyone have any other ideas of how I can get this printed?

Dec 8, 2008. 4:13 PM REPLY

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

toyarmy says:
i used my inkjet printer. no biggie.

Dec 13, 2008. 11:38 PM REPLY

ladonola says:
umm.... you could send it to a photo printing store, via there website or usb drive

Dec 10, 2008. 12:51 PM REPLY

davidprosser says:
does it have to be printed on a laser printer or can it be done on an inkjet?

Dec 12, 2008. 2:02 PM REPLY

GriffDFHS10 says:
In addition to the instructions provided, having Adobe Photoshop helps alot.

Dec 10, 2008. 9:00 AM REPLY

Bobblob says:

Dec 10, 2008. 1:18 PM REPLY The free and amazing program called IrfanView will do this. It can desaturate, change contrast, brightness etc. and can even cut (copy/paste) the 4 parts of your picture of choice and paste them each in a new blank open IrfanView file for printing. Keep open a "Master" copy of the picture you want to tile. Click and drag the mouse to draw a box of the right size and location ( the edges of this box can be adjusted with the mouse after it has been "drawn" ) Mark the area on the monitor (marker if glass monitor or small bits of "PostIt" if plastic coated LCD display) to mark areas already copied. May take a few attempts but it's all free.

ladonola says:
if u dont have photoshop, just google gimp and theres a free alternitive

Dec 10, 2008. 12:50 PM REPLY

JellyWoo says:
great idea! can you explain more detail when using photoshop? i'm not so familiar with it.

Dec 9, 2008. 2:21 PM REPLY

laurenrice says:
I love, LOVE this idea! I am so glad I stumbled onto this site! This is such a cool way to display your favorite photos, and not to mention how unique and modern! I cannot wait to try this out, and I will post my experience soon after.

Dec 8, 2008. 4:25 PM REPLY

Ejb63 says:
does the tape have to be a double adhesive?

Jul 20, 2008. 12:13 PM REPLY

grimfig says:
What's double adhesive?

Dec 7, 2008. 12:41 PM REPLY

yngla says:
Double sided tape ie its sticky on both sides.

Dec 8, 2008. 12:26 AM REPLY

grimfig says:
So it's just normal Double Sided Scotch Tape.

Dec 8, 2008. 8:53 AM REPLY

yngla says:
I guess so.

Dec 8, 2008. 9:07 AM REPLY

yngla says:
I think so. I used a regular tape at first and it melted and ruined the printer :(

Jul 24, 2008. 2:15 PM REPLY

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/

BPHuntley says:
What's the brand of tape you used?

Dec 7, 2008. 12:00 PM REPLY

yngla says:
I dont know. Its from an office store. and came without a brand name.

Dec 8, 2008. 12:29 AM REPLY

Ejb63 says:
Here is a sunflower that I did yesterday. :)

Jul 27, 2008. 11:29 AM REPLY

schulze says:

Aug 12, 2008. 1:07 PM REPLY I loved your picture. It has inspired me to pull out some of my past photos and play with this. Any ideas for framing the tiles when done?

yngla says:
This is how I framed it.

Aug 13, 2008. 1:20 AM REPLY

DIYDragon says:

Dec 7, 2008. 2:00 PM REPLY Looks great! I want to do something like this, but for a wall. And actually have the tiles stuck to the wall like they would be used normally. :) Would make an awesome mural I think. Collage of different pictures.

yngla says:
Great idea. I would love to see the result!

Dec 8, 2008. 12:23 AM REPLY

yngla says:
Such a beautiful picture! Thanks for sharing!!!

Jul 27, 2008. 12:29 PM REPLY

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http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-unique-tile-picture-for-less-than-3/