Holiday Helper: Pretty Picture Frame
by Amy Brayfield
Grandparents are suckers for cute pictures of their grandchildren. Here’s an easy way to make pretty picture frames that are perfect for holiday giving. My daughter and I whipped up a batch of these for each of her grandparents plus a couple of extras in just a few hours. Once you get going, they’re a breeze to mass produce.
What You Need:
- Leftover fabric (prints are more fun than solids)
- Cotton batting
- Cardboard (we used old boxes)
- Felt
- Hot glue gun or fabric glue
- Scissors
- Decorations, such as buttons, beads, appliqués, etc., if you want
- Photos
What You Do:
- Cut the cardboard to the right size for the photo you want to use. (We almost always have 4x6 photos, so we cut out rectangles just a little bigger than that.) I use the box cutter to do this, so it’s probably a mom or dad task.
- Once you’ve got your rectangle, you’ll need to cut another rectangle inside it to make the frame. Make sure you size it so that the picture you want to include will show properly. We leave about an inch of frame all the way around. (If you’re doing a batch of these, you might as well use this one as a pattern and go ahead and cut out a bunch at once. Ask your child to trace the frames onto the cardboard while you cut.)
- Now let your child choose his favorite fabric, and cut out a matching frame shape from it. You want to allow extra fabric on each side for folding over.
- You also need a “frame” of cotton batting that’s smaller than the fabric frame but a little wider than the cardboard frame.
- Use fabric glue or a hot glue gun to attach the cotton batting to the cardboard frame. (Fabric glue is stickier, but your kids can use it. Hot glue is easier, but you have to man the gun. My daughter loves gluing, so we usually opt for fabric glue.) Glue the overlap to the back of the frame.
- Center the fabric frame on top of the cotton batting, and carefully glue it to the batting, pulling it tight and gluing the overlap on the back of the frame. Help your child to pull it tight so that the front of the frame looks smooth.
- Cut out a felt rectangle large enough to cover the back of the frame. Apply glue to three sides, leaving one side unglued so that you can slip your picture in. Press the edges down firmly.
- Now you can slide your photo into the felt flap and call it a day, or — if you’re like my offspring — you can add some embellishments. We stitched on a few buttons to one of our frames and added sparkly beads to another one, but you could do almost anything.
These are so easy, and if you have coordinating fabric, a set of three (complete with photos) makes a perfect grandparent gift. If you’re like me and terrible about actually buying picture frames, they’re also a nice holiday present for your own desk.
Amy Brayfield is a cheapskate, and she's not afraid to admit it. In addition to torturing her children by not taking them to McDonald's every day, she writes about parenting and family topics for various national and local magazines. She lives happily in the Midwest with her husband and two children.
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