Tag: Frame

Craft Projects, Paint, Quick and Easy Crafts

Painted Frame Mats

Jessica Smith

{A Smith of All Trades} Painted Frame Mats

I have been trying for about a year now to accessorize our house with adorable and mushy pictures of us, cutesy pictures of our pup, and wonderful photos of our families. Last night, in between cleaning out a hall closet and playing with my pup, I attempted this feat again. I broke out my stash of picture frames and rearranged a few shelves in our living room. I set my sights on this trio of white frames — I love the white frame with the patterned, yellow mat that I bought from Target a bajillion years ago. The other two frames are just… meh. Boringggggg.

I picked them up from the thrift store last year and never did anything super exciting with them. Last night I changed that.

I pooped the mats out and dashed off to my craft room to unearth some paint!

One mat got a green polka dot treatment using the end of a pen.

{A Smith of All Trades} Painted Frame Mats

The other got a blue chevron stripe. I did both by hand and just eye-balled in. After all, the other side is free for painting if I screwed it up!

{A Smith of All Trades} Painted Frame Mats

Once my mats were dry, I popped them back into the frames and set them on a shelf in our living room. Lord knows this won’t be their last home, but for now they are quite the colorful and cheery trio.

{A Smith of All Trades} Painted Frame Mats

{A Smith of All Trades} Painted Frame Mats

Cute, huh? Now I need some purple and orange and I’ll have a whole rainbow of frames.

{A Smith of All Trades} Painted Frame Mats

Christmas, Craft Projects, Holiday

Cookie Cutter framed art

Jessica Smith

Do you and your family make Christmas cookies every year? We do — in fact, it’s a big to-do in our family. We set aside an entire day dedicated to making our famous sugar cookies before our extended family joins us for the holidays.

Last year, we went through our cookie cutters to weed out the ones we never use, and my mom pulled out a set that used to be her mom’s. We never use them because they are a bit of a pain to use, but she didn’t want to throw them away. So, she gave them to me to make Christmas artwork for her. I turned them into a pretty and festive framed piece of art that she displays in her kitchen — how perfect!

To make the frame, I bought a ruby-red fabric with gold diamonds on it, as well as some spray adhesive. I also grabbed a shadow box frame since the cookie cutters aren’t flat.

I sprayed the adhesive onto the black insert that came with the frame and tightly wrapped the fabric around the edges. I trimmed off the excess and let it dry. Don’t go overboard on the spray glue because it can seep through your fabric.

Once the fabric was secure, I figured out how I wanted to space my cookie cutters, then started to glue. The cookie cutters were hollow(ish) on the inside, so I had to glue something inside of them so the glue could reach the fabric. For one, I glued crumpled up paper, which worked great. For the remaining ones, I glued small magnets. Those also did the trick.

With the cookie cutters ready to be added, I piled up hot glue on top of the paper/magnets, then carefully placed them onto my fabric-covered cardboard.

After I had all four glued on, I wanted to add a little something extra. I had ribbon that matched the fabric perfectly, so I tied four bows to add to the frame.

Once they were all about equal size, I glued them onto each of the cookie cutters.

Then, I popped the cardboard back into the frame and secured the back. Voila!