All Because He Ate His Cabbage Casserole - Tutorial and a recipe

I was able to make a lot of fun things for Christmas this year, but this was one of my favorites.  As a family, we wanted to surprise our M&D with something they could have that would show their WHOLE posterity. Let's face it, with 10 children and their spouses, 48 grandchildren, a grandson-in-law and 1 great grandchild, it is not likely we would ever get together for a picture again.  And...you would never be able to see everyone anyway!  So, when I saw this idea at The Idea Room, my wheels started churning.  I was not sure 10 families would work, but it did! 

For the saying above the arrangement, I really wanted something unique to our family.  Something that would be a great conversation piece for them.  My mother was reminding us of the story about when my dad met her family for the first time.  Her family had a tradition of making cabbage casserole for huge gatherings.  My grandmother told my dad if he wanted into the family, he had to eat his cabbage casserole.  To his credit, he pretended to like it and ate it all up.   So...we played around with this story and that is how we came up with the saying.

In December, we had a good portion of my family here, so my sister from Headfirst Photo took pictures of those who were here and did all of the editing into black and white..  

Ugh, I really wish I owned a good camera

I used photoshop to create each picture used.  To make sure they printed as a square photo, I opened up a new document, sized it for a 4x6.  I added some digital scrapbook paper behind the picture and this is where I added the name and age.  

I sized the picture to fit a 3-1/2 wide x 2-3/4 high space (after many trials, this is the perfect fit for a 1x4).  When you print these out, they print as a 4x6 and you just have to trim off the white area around the picture.  If you don't have photoshop, you can use any 4x6 picture and just crop to the above measurements.  Walmart does 4x6 prints for only 9 cents each.  Make sure if you use their online ordering, you check the prints to see if they were cropped right.  One more lesson learned.  

  

I used 1x4's for the wood (which is not REALLY 4 inches at all and caused me great grief in how many times I had to redo 50+ pictures...).  I painted the boards black, modge podged the pictures on.  We hung each picture onto the wall first and then used white tulle to hang them around a curtain rod. 

Here is somewhat of a closeup so you can see detail.  Click on the picture for a closer look.  I used high gloss modge podge and did fun texturing with it.

With 48 grandchildren, we wanted to make sure Grandpa would never forget their names.  ;).  Each picture has the first name and age of each child.  Each plaque has the last name and year the family was established.

Cabbage Casserole

I know you are all dying to know the recipe for the cabbage casserole right?  Here is how I make it:

1 cabbage shredded and steamed and drained

1 box of stuffing (Stove Top is easiest) mixed with 1 cube of melted butter

cheese sauce

For the cheese sauce, melt 1/4 real butter in a sauce pan, add 1/4 cup flour and mix to make a paste.  Add 2 cups of milk or cream and stir until thickened.  Add 2 cups of cheese and stir until melted.  (If there is nothing more this recipe is good for, it is the cheese sauce.  It makes THE BEST homemade macaroni and cheese and my kids LOVE it over steamed veggies.)

Mix cabbage and sauce together and place in a casserole dish.  Evenly distribute the Stove Top mixture on top and bake on 400 degrees until the Stove Top is crispy and the cabbage is bubbling.  

If you had to come up with a saying for a wall arrangement in your family, what would it be?

As always, if you have questions, please feel free to ask!

I am linking up to any and all of these great linky parties here.