Gilbert LDS Temple Watercolor Art{Free Printable!}

If you live anywhere near Gilbert, Arizona and/or you're even remotely close to anyone who is a Mormon here, you have probably heard ad nauseam about how excited we are to have a brand new temple.  Your Facebook and Instagram feeds have probably been flooded with photos of sharply-dressed families as they attended the open house and sopping wet teenagers who participated in the Cultural celebration in the rain the night before the dedication.  It has been a remarkable few weeks for us, the members of the Mormon church, in this area.

I decided to combine two of my current favorites at the moment -- the Gilbert temple and the Waterlogue app on my iPhone -- to make a little printable artwork for our home and to share with all of you.  If you're not familiar with Waterlogue, it is the super-cool app that takes your photographs and turns them into watercolor paintings.  {At least it makes them look like watercolor paintings, which is really exciting for those of us who don't paint!}  

After we took our children and some of their friends on a tour of the temple during the open house, I "Waterlogue-d" several of the photos we had taken.  This one with the red flowers in the foreground was my favorite.  I thought it would be cool to print it out for each of my children to keep on their bedside table as a memento of the awesome experiences they have had and a reminder to not lose focus on their future goals.

I opened the picture up in my photo-editing program and scaled it to fit in a small 5x7 frame and then printed them onto textured cardstock {to further the watercolor illusion}.  I tried a few different colors of paper to see what I liked the best.  Turns out plain old white made the pictures look the most spectacular. Here you can see the texture a little better:

It's not exactly like watercolor paper, but it looks pretty cool!  If you would like to download the watercolor image for your personal use, you can do so here:

To download:  Click on the image above while pressing the CTRL key to open it in a new tab.  Click on the image again in the new tab to make it full size.  Right click on the image and save it to your computer.

Once the images were printed {using just my home printer -- nothing fancy}, all I had to do was pop them into frames and they were done.  This one is for me.  The kids will all get frames that match their rooms. 

I would love to get my kids to write down some of the feelings they have had throughout the Cultural Celebration and temple dedication on a 5x7 card and put that into the back side of the frame.  We'll see how cooperative they are with that . . .  At any rate, I think these are a really beautiful reminder of a special time in our lives.

If the Gilbert Temple isn't meaningful to you, give the Waterlogue app a try and create your own beautiful piece of art for your home.  Maybe a wedding photo or a favorite picture of your kids or pet.  Leave me a link if you do -- I would love to see it.

Have a great day, friends!

Amy