Fabulous photo frames

Hi, I’m Karen and I was thrilled to be asked to be a Guest Designer for today. Thank you ladies for inviting me. I’m going to show how to transform an ordinary, run of the mill photo frame into an object of beauty.

As you can see, my photo frame was looking dull and the photos were about 3 years out of date too, so the whole thing was desperately in need of a makeover. I’ve covered this one with cardstock weight patterned paper, which works well on flat surfaces, but if you have a moulded frame, you could paint instead (I’d recommend you use gesso as a primer first).

Supplies for the frame shown here:

Mod Podge Sandpaper K&Co Amy Butler Belle patterned papers Fancy Pants chipboard flowers Li’l Davis Designs chipboard photo corners Li’l Davis glitter chipboard alphabet Maya Road chipboard heart Heidi Swapp fuzzy rub ons, pink Li’l Davis glitter glaze, clear Lime green, bright pink & pale blue acrylic paint Pale blue ric rac

Firstly, choose your patterned papers – the ones I’ve used are K&Co Amy Butler Belle but the beauty is that you can use absolutely anything and match it to your home décor. Measure the width and height of the frame, and cut strips of patterned paper to size. Note: as my frame is quite wide, I had to join two strips together for the top and bottom strips but I matched the pattern carefully and it’s barely noticeable. Alternatively, you could use lots of paper scraps and cover your frame in a patchwork effect.

To mitre the corners , simply place the patterned paper strip in position on top of the frame and make a small mark to show where you need to cut at an angle. The photo below is to illustrate this; I’ve used a thick black line so it can be seen more clearly but in practice I just make a very small mark with a pencil by the inner corner of the frame.

Sand the frame lightly to key the surface, and use Mod Podge to stick the papers in place. Allow to dry and sand the edges of the paper to give a distressed/aged feel; apply a thin coat of Mod Podge to seal.

Once dry, decorate the frame as you like. I covered some chipboard flowers with patterned paper, then sanded the edges and tied on some ric rac. I then added some glittery chipboard lettering plus some painted and glittered chipboard embellishments. You can keep it simple or pile on the embellishments; a word of wisdom though (it’s probably obvious but I learned this the hard way when I did my first frame a while back) – if your photo frame is to be used freestanding, make sure that the embellishments don’t overhang the bottom edge or it won’t stand up!

As a finishing touch on my frame, I added some new up to date photographs and used rub on velvet lettering on each photo. I hope you like the project and it inspires you to give some of your old frames a makeover of their own.