How to make a Graduation display table

To make my daughter's Graduation table display, I knew I wanted to go BIG! I also knew I didn't want to destroy or make copies of so many photographs. So, I had seen somewhere on the internet how to make a large black and white MECHANICAL PRINT or ENGINEER'S PRINT from FEDEX for very little money. When I say large, I mean "Large"! 36x48 inches large! This size is the exact size of the large display boards you will find at Staples or Office Depot. So I used a "Proportional Scale" to find out how large I needed to make my file on my desktop publishing software. For 36 X 38 to be large enough to work on in condensed form and keep the quality highest, my software went up to 20 inches. That meant I had to find out, on the proportional wheel, what would 36" be. My wheel told me 15X20 or 42% of the finished size.

The best thing about doing this is the cost! It was right at $10 for a 36X48 print!
This is what it looked like after being printed at Fedex. I needed to trim a little, but I loved it!


My next step was to attach it to my display board. I knew that would be tricky since it's so big. I decided to do it in sections. Which meant measuring and cutting each "panel", then attaching with spray adhesive.



So off to the deck I went to avoid any over spray. I ended up with this. I burnished the image with a Pampered Chef scraper!


I then did the two fold sides. (Didn't take a picture of that, but you get the idea.
This was my finished display before adding pictures.


As you can tell, there were sections of "white" on the edges. I knew I needed to get rid of them and decided cutting them with the band saw would be quicker than using an exacto, but you could do either if you had the same problem.

Next, I added pictures down the side.

* OH! One thing I forgot to mention is the great font that I used for my daughter's quote. It is called Bromello from dafont.com. Best of all, it was a free download! I LOVE this font!