Start off with a wooden plaque (you can get these at craft stores for $1 or less), some sandpaper, acrylic paint, and a sponge brush. You'll need to sand any rough edges of the plaque with sandpaper to get a smooth finish. I like sponge brushes (like the one pictured) because they don't shed little hairs into your wet paint.

Cut out your image. You can use photos or illustrations from books or magazines (make a color copy if you don't want to cut up your book). The image I used is an illustration I did for Pimp Stitch. I drew the image in Illustrator so it was easy to add color.

Compose a layout.

Brush a thin coat of decoupage medium onto the back of your paper and stick it down into place. I am using Crafty Chicaâ„¢ Glossy Gloss Varnishâ„¢ as my decoupage medium.

After all of your pieces are "glued" in place, brush a thin coat of decoupage medium evenly on top of the images. Don't worry about coating the whole plaque, just stick with sealing the images for now. I found that if I tried to cover the whole plaque in a layer of varnish I would get dirt and cat hair in some of the layers. Yeck.

Let the first coat dry then repeat this process until the images are well-adhered and well sealed. If you are sure they aren't coming off or pealing at the edges then you can go ahead and coat the entire plaque with decoupage medium to seal and to give your paint a high-gloss shine.

Get yourself a picture hanging kit and hammer the hardware onto the back of the plaque. Please make sure the plaque isn't upside down first (um, yeah, you can tell I learned that the hard way...)!

Now you are ready to wrap up these babies. You can make cute, personalized plaques for everyone on your gift list. A bonus - the brightly colored plaques are very "in" right now as well!