The first thing you think of when it comes to the month of February is romance. It is the month of Valentines day and many of us are thinking up creative and fun things to surprise that special someone in our lives with. I decided to create a very sweet picture frame which can hang pictures of all your special memories. This beautiful and fun project is really so easy to do and the result is so pretty and bound to bring some wow factor to your Valentine’s day surprise. It take a little bit more planning than some of my other projects but once you have all the equipment it’s actually super easy. I hope you enjoy making this as much as I did!
Happy romantic creating.
Leonie
Romantic Picture Frame
What you need:
- A simple timber board. I used this thin ply board which is available in a variety of sizes. Mine is about 800mmx600mm but it totally depends on how large you want your frame to be and how many pictures you want to hang on it.
- A frame for the board to create the frames section around the edges. These are available in a variety of sizes and you can choose from some very modern and simple styles or go for an elegant and romantic one such as the one I chose here.
- a small handheld wood saw
- some wooden clothes pegs
- a colour of your choice for the backdrop-I chose Cuprinol ‘Pale jasmine’ for the frame to make it sit well with the wall behind it and also allow the pictures centre stage.
- a colour for the wooden clothes pegs-I chose the Cuprinol ‘Raspberry Sorbet’ which picks up on the colour of the pretty flowers I chose to go with the scheme.
- some string-I love this natural brown garden twine-it works beautifully with the white and the pinks and gives the scheme an organic touch.
- some small picture frame hooks
- A paintbrush and roller and a roller tray for mixing the colours. I used MarkMx pack of three silk tipped brushes from Mark-John Dublin.
- some wood adhesive
- a ruler and a pencil to mark out your 45 degree angles.
All products available at Woodies
How to create your romantic picture frame:
- The first step is to cut your picture frame lengths to suit the board you have bought. To do this I would recommend using a set square which is a triangular ruler. This will allow you to cut the frame at 45 degree angles so that they join up at the corners. Cut these to suit-making sure you mark them all out before you cut. TIP: if you have chosen a frame that is thicker on one side than the other, such as the one I used then make sureall four lengths will have the thicker side in the same place or they won’t line up when we go to glue them.
- Next you want to paint up your chosen board as well as the four lengths and let them dry.
- While these are drying you can mix up the paint for the wooden clothes pegs. I love using different shades of one colour to create a sort of ombre mix on the pegs. This makes for a really pretty graduated colour effect. I panted the white first and then added in the pink and blended them slightly. Soft pink is also such a romantic colour so perfect for Valentines day.
- Now it’s time to glue your dried frame to you board. I put wood glue on both the frame and the timber board and then laid some heavy books on the frame to weigh it down as it dried. I then left this overnight to dry.
- Now it’s time to start deciding where your hooks are to go. Think about what levels you want the pictures to hang from and space the hooks out so that the stings have enough space for the images to hang down both in landscape and portrait orientation. The frames I used were actually soft enough not to need any test holes so I could screw the golden picture hooks straight into the frame easily.
- Now you can tie the garden twine tightly enough to hang the pictures on them.
- Finally get your romantic images ready and printed and use the ombre coloured clothes pegs to hand them wherever you fancy.
TOP TIP: A beautiful finishing touch is to complete the whole scheme with some beautiful flowers. I used a combination of flowers from the florist -waxflowers, freesias and broom and some beautiful potted ones from Woodies-Hellebores and Jasmine-all in the same lovely colour scheme as the pinks and whites. This really brings the whole scheme together and makes the perfect display for Valentines day.
