Make a decorative photoframe as a gift or just to decorate your home if you have a favourite photograph
This is a really simple gift to make and you can use whatever you have in your craft stash to decorate the frame. I have made a Christmas photoframe for a photo of my dog to decorate the living room. At this time of year in the UK, we often have our children's school photo's that we give to relatives - how nice would it be to decorate the frame as well?
I've just used a little bit of coloured card, a few dies and some random buttons I had in my stash. Below I'll show you lots of ideas that you could do to make a Christmas photo frame. It doesn't have to be a Christmas photo frame - you could use flowers, leaves, balloons, stars or any other stamps or images you have.
I have used a cheap photo frame - it really doesn't need to cost much and you could even slightly sand it and paint it before adding your decorations. The great thing with this gift, is you can play around with the decorations and keep changing your mind until you are happy with the composition. Once happy, then just glue everything down.
Follow the below link to find out how the frame was made
You will need
- Photoframe
- Scraps of coloured card
- Random buttons
- Dies or punches
- Stamps and ink pads
- Glue
I have made up several examples that you could do. For each one, underneath the photo, I will explain what I used:
- Very simple snowy scene
- Foliage
- Stamped dog
- Snow
- Buttons
- Holly
I used 'Hearts come home' stamp and die sets by Stampin Up, a piece of white card and a pale green ink pad called 'soft succulent' by Stampin Up.
I cut a piece of white card to the width of the photo frame and about 6 cm high. I stamped a greeting on the lower left edge and then die cut a hill of houses out of the top. I had to use some scissors to cut the very edges as the die wasn't quite wide enough. This would then be glued to the lower edge of the photo frame. Why not add some glitter glue for a bit of extra Christmas sparkle
I used foliage dies from the 'Christmas Staircase' die set by Stampin Up, 'evening evergreen' and 'soft succulent' coloured card by Stampin Up and a couple of random red buttons.
I cut lots of foliage from the two shades of green card. These could then be glued to two opposite corners of the frame and a red button added ontop of each pile of foliage. You could cover the whole frame in foliage and maybe add some brown branches in aswell to add a bit of colour variety.
I used 'Ready for Christmas' stamp set and 'Christmas Staircase' dies by Stampin Up, black ink pad, white and dark green card and promarker pens to colour the images.
I stamped the dog and baubles from the stamp set using black ink onto white card. I coloured in the images then die cut them out. I die cut foliage from dark green card. These are all then glued to the frame - the foliage on the top left hand corner with baubles added ontop using double sided foam pads. The dog is added to the lower right hand corner.
I used glittery white card, 3 different sized snowflake dies and an icicle edge die.
I cut a piece of glittery white card to the same width as the frame and about 3 cm high and then used the icicle edge die to cut this strip near the bottom. I cut out lots of different sized snowflakes from the glittery card. The icicles are then glued to the top of the frame and the snowflakes glued randomly around the rest of the frame.
I used lots of random buttons in red, green and yellow.
Just glue the buttons around the edge of the frame
I used a Holly leaf die, dark green card and random red buttons.
Cut Lots of sets of holly leaves from dark green card and glue them around the edge of the frame. I then glued a red button on each set of holly leaves
A slightly different version of this one was to add holly leaves and buttons just to the corners of the frame.
These are just a few examples - just use whatever is in your crafting stash. Stamp, die cut etc then lay out your design until you are happy with it before gluing it down. You could stamp more images, like reindeer or snowmen or you could even add some ribbons, gems or bells.
In the end, my son preferred the buttons frame (he loves buttons) but my favourite was the foliage one, so I glued it all down and this is my final result:
