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My Little House Design: Pinterest Challenge: Fabric Wrapped Picture Frame

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Pinterest Challenge: Fabric Wrapped Picture Frame

I've been actively blogging for over six months now so I think it is about time that I join a link party. If you don't know what a link party is it's pretty simple: Four or five 'big' bloggers pose a challenge or theme and then at a specific date and time everyone can link up their posts that relate to the subject. It is a really fun way to find new blogs and see cool projects. The link party I decided to try out is...


Being that is one of the few blogs I read regularly it is apropos that I would join younghouselove.com's Winter Pinterest Challenge. You can read all the rules here but it's basically a 'stop pinning and start doing' challenge. Considering I've had Pinterest for well over a year and I've pinned exactly 2,390 things up to this very minute I could use the push to actually do some of the stuff I pin.

Trying to comb through 2,390 pins to find the one that I actually wanted to do this weekend was maybe the hardest part of the challenge. In order to not go insane I made myself some rules to help limit my choices 1) It had to be free and 2) It couldn't take more than two hours. My weekend was pretty busy and I just put in new cork floors in the kitchen so I'm not looking to spend tons of money on another project right now. The rules helped and I landed on this: 


Yeah, it's not the most inspiring image I've ever pinned and the fabric is ugly and it's cut with plinking shears which is not my thing but it got me thinking... I have a lot of scrap fabric and I'm obviously obsessed with framed art so why not mix the two together? 

Plus the gallery wall in my living room hasn't been updated (or dusted or leveled) in some time so I figured it would be nice way to add some new life to the gallery. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

After looking at all my frames I decided to wrap the two brown frames at the bottom of the image. The main reason is because of this: 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

Whatever the price tag was stuck on with is resistant to GooGone, vinegar and baking soda, and a lot of swearing because it would NOT come off. I finally just gave up and hung them on the wall but it's been bugging me for a year so I figured they were the perfect frames to cover in fabric.

I have a lot of random fabric I've collected over the years (if you squint you can see it all piled up in the picture above), but I ultimately decided to go with the subtle chevron pattern that I used just a few weeks ago to cover the lampshades in the second bedroom (here).  I literally didn't even look at the tutorial for this project because how hard can it be to wrap fabric around a picture frame? I probably should have read the tutorial but I sort of forgot. I just started cutting random strips of fabric and started wrapping. 

I figured out pretty quickly I needed glue or something to keep the fabric in place so I got out my low-temp hot glue gun. I didn't glue every piece just the end of the strip and then at all the corners. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

If there is one thing blogging has taught me it's that I really need a third hand. It's really hard to take pictures and do crafts! So here is a sort of unhelpful picture of me wrapping fabric around a picture frame.

As you can probably imagine the corners posed the biggest challenge. I attempted a few different techniques but found that the best way is to wrap the fabric so that the middle of the strip lands at the corner of the frame like this: 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

And then fold down the wings and glue them on the back. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

That may or may not makes sense but that's the best I've got. 

When it was all wrapped and glued I stepped back to take a look at it and...

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

All I could see were these little threads sticking up everywhere so after a lot of little snips I got a much cleaner looking finished product. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

 Not too bad! The next issue though was the little pieces that secure the back of the picture frame. They were all covered in fabric but after a little hunting I located all of them. Most of them were hiding like this:

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

But with a little snip of the scissor I freed them so they could securely hold the frame backing on. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

It was definitely a tight fit getting the glass and frame backing in. I took out the extra thick cardboard piece that a lot of frames have and that help free up some space. The fabric I used is 100% cotton and was thankfully pretty thin so as a caution don't try this with anything thicker than that, it will be too hard to get the glass + picture + frame backing to all fit together under the tabs. 

Overall, this was a very simple project that only took me about an hour to do.

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

Materials:

- One yard of thin fabric (I used about four 3" wide strips per frame) 
- Hot glue gun
- Picture frame
- Good music


I also did the second frame the same way. They are sort of messy and weird and not my style and trendy and tribal and strange and I think I like them. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames
I'm so cool I wear sunglasses in every picture. 

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames
Holla butterbeer at Harry Potter World in 105 degree heat!

mylittlehousedesign.com DIY Fabric Wrapped Picture Frames

For a zero dollar project I think I really like them! It is a much cheaper alternative to buying a trendy chevron frame (like this one), but they also look homemade so it's a toss up. If you have more time I think it would look better to ModPodge the fabric on the frame to give it a more streamlined look. The way I did it makes them look almost ruffly which is not my style but maybe it's yours. 

The bottom line is this: It was free and I think it looks pretty good. 

Do you think fabric wrapped frames is a good alternative to buying trendy patterned frames? 

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2 Comments:

At March 6, 2013 at 8:18 PM , Blogger Kim said...

They turned out super cute.

 
At March 10, 2013 at 6:46 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

Thanks Kim!

 

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