Hello everyone! Happy New Year! This is going to be my first blogpost of 2017 after a few months of no content, but one of my goals this year is to become more active with my blog, so hopefully this will be a good start. So, for this post, I am going to be sharing how you can transform 3 plain photo frames into something really cute and personalized. These are just some ideas but they are totally customizeable to your style and taste!
For this DIY you will need:
~ Photo frames, any size you want, I picked up a 3 pack of white ones for £1 I think from B&M.
~ A photograph to fit the size of your frame, I picked mine up from Boots for 40p.
~Some printed photos and a background photo to fit your frame.
~Paint, I used acrylic, I had some at home but you can buy paint for fairly cheap at stores like The Range for around £2.50.
~Sandpaper to sand your frames ready for painting.
~PVA glue, £2.99 from The Range.
~Coloured glitter of your choice, I am using gold as it matches my room, I got this for £1.50 at The Range.
~Some stickers of letters, I paid £1 and got them from The Range, however this is optional as you could just print out a word or quote or hand write it.
~String and mini pegs, I got mine for a total of £3.50 from The Range.
For the first frame, the pink one, you have to start by sanding the frame and then painting it a colour of your choice. I wasn't looking forward to sanding the frame by hand as I thought it would take long but it didn't, it took about 10 minutes and I just sanded it until it had a rough surface for the paint to stick to. After sanding it, I painted it a pink shade which only took me about 5 minutes and it only needed 1 coat. I let that dry overnight so it was ready for me to work with in the morning. After it was completely dry, I took the glue and used a brush to place it where I wanted, which was only on half of the frame, then I sprinkled my glitter on the glue, tapped off the excess and the frame was done! I popped my photo in it and I love the end result, it looks really unique and I love the look of the glitter!
For the next frame, the green one, I did the same 2 steps as before, I sanded and painted the frame but this time in a pastel green shade and I left it to dry overnight. After it was completely dry, I went over it with the sandpaper slightly because I wanted to give it that slightly rustic and worn in look. Once the actual frame was done I started working on what I was going to put inside the frame, I didn't want it to be another photograph since I wanted to show you how you can vary what you put in photo frames so for this one I decided to put a bit of artwork in it. I started off with cutting a piece of plain, white paper to the size of the frame. I then started to paint on the glue in the shape I wanted the glitter to be, I opted for this upside down triangle at first. Immediately after I sprinkled glitter on it and I had my design. I thought it was missing something though so I added more glue to the bottom with more glitter on top, I wanted it to look like glitter was just chucked on the paper and it had a bit of a messy feel. You can do whatever you want with the inside of this frame, you don't have to use glitter you could print out a quote and stick it in, I opted for glitter since I love the look of it and I am glitter obsessed. After I was happy with my design, I used my stickers to write 'Paris' in the middle to finish it off! This is really customizeable as you can do whatever design you like and write whatever you want!
For my final frame, I was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest and I just decided to recreate it as it looked really easy. If you hate glitter then you will be pleased to know that this one is glitter free and equally as cute! I decided to leave the frame as it was since I wanted the inside to be quite busy and didn't want there to be too many things that clashed. So first I went and hunted down a nice pattern for the background and sized it to the size of my frame, I went for this colourful feather background which I thought was really nice. After that I found a quote I liked and sized that to the size I was happy with, I just went on word and placed the image on top of my background to see the size I wanted. I then found this tropical print that I placed into a heart shape as well as ombred a circle with the word 'Paradise' in the middle. I printed and cut these out and I was ready to go. I only printed 3 photos as my frame was quite small so print as many as you like or as many that will fit in your frame. Again, this is completely customizeable to you and you can always swap and change the images on the pegs! I found the easiest thing to do was glue your background onto the back of the frame leg (I don't know what the correct term is but the part that holds the frame up) and then glue the string on top of the background but don't glue the parts of the string you are placing the images as it will make it much easier.
After that, I pegged my photos onto the string and attempted to put it into the frame but the pegs got in the way of the glass and after a while of trying to force the thing into the frame, I ended up taking the glass out and it worked perfectly! I think this is my favourite frame of all 3 since it is just so cute and I feel like it looks like something you would pay close to £10 for!
I hope you all enjoyed this easy, fun and cheap DIY, I really enjoyed creating these frames and it was so easy and quick, I thought I was going to find it hard since I haven't done anything like this before. My favourite thing about doing stuff like this is that it is completely unique to you and I loved seeing the finished result after imagining what they were going to turn out like! Hopefully you take some inspiration from this post and DIY your own frame!
Thanks for reading!
Britney xo