insta print me please

ever since receiving my family yearbook in the mail, i have been extra eager to print off all my pictures currently being held hostage in my computer and iphone.  currently one of my main picture-taking platforms happens to be instagram.  i've been obsessed for awhile now with the convenience, simplicity, and ability to capture the little every day moments that would normally be forgotten {a.k.a all the adorable and hilarious things my pup does throughout the day}.  there are plenty of websites, such as stickygram, that allow you to easily print off these pictures and convert them to magnets or other useful mediums.  if you are interested in these options, be sure to check out this site for more information.  and while i think these options are great, i also think they are a little pricey.  luckily, printing off your instagram pictures is a pretty easy thing to do at home {plus you get them right away instead of having to wait for them in the mail. instant.}.

in order to print them off, i bought a pack of 8.5x11 inch photo paper from walmart.  a pack of 50 sheets cost $10.  i only used 12 sheets, so it should last quite awhile.  i also made sure i had plenty of color ink in my printer.  

if you use photostream on your iphone, all of your instagram pictures will most likely already be saved on your computer.  if you don't have an iphone or don't know if you have photostream, you can go to instarchive, login with your instagram info and have all your pictures saved to your computer in a zip file.  

the next step is to organize your photos onto one page to be printed.  this would be easy to do on any photo editing software that has a collage feature.  my favorite free photo editing software is photoscape.  unfortunately, it is only available for windows and i can no longer use it now that i have a mac.  typically i do most of my editing in iphoto, but i also downloaded picasa for when i want to batch edit photos.  in picasa, i just highlighted the pictures i wanted and clicked the button on the top left to make a collage.  i found it worked best to select six pictures at a time.  this made the photos around 2.75 inches tall and wide.  the more pictures you add to the collage, the smaller they will be.  i found that having four pictures hardly made them larger and seemed to waste a lot more paper.  i made sure to use a white background and chose the "contact sheet" option.  i also unchecked the box "draw shadows".    the cool thing about picasa is that you can choose to make the picture look like a polaroid, or you can keep it as a square.  since i already have a wall started with my real polaroids, i opted to choose the no border option.  once you create your collage, you can save it and send to your printer.    

 i used a paper cutter to quickly cut out the pictures, leaving a thin white border along the edges.  of course you can always use a scissors, but it could be quite a process depending on how many pictures you print.

i only wanted to print a few to use in a frame i made. 

i purchased the frame from goodwill and used a staple gun to attach twine to the back.  i only had large clothespins at home, so i may need to replace those.  and even though the frame only held eight photos, i just couldn't. stop. printing.

now i have 74 extra pictures and no idea what to do with them. 

whew, that was a wordy post.  but i am just so obsessed with these tiny little squares that i simply had to share.  and guess what?  another post is a comin' with more of the details around that frame.  get excited!