Personalized Kid's Art Frame

I'm sure the cleaning bug has bitten many of you, particularly in the Midwest, during this wave of unseasonably warm temperatures.   My house has definitely been seized by the organize and purge bug.  I find myself to be a bit of a craft and art hoarder, and those items are the ones I have the hardest time letting go.  My bins of Jonah's art projects are beyond ridiculous at this point so I am constantly searching for new ways to preserve the ones that are the most significant.  


On a related note, I read an article here that stated with each new little addition in the family, the possession/clutter count will increase by 30%.  That startled me a little considering that I've only got about three and a half months until our new little one arrives.  And then I started thinking about the art projects that would invariably come with the addition of him.  Compile that with my already ridiculous stockpile of the Jonah Art Museum and I was immediately sucked into a downward vortex of clutter panic.  Will I get their projects mixed up?  What am I going to do with them all? What if I forget to label who made what?  So, the obvious answer is to only keep the most sentimental and important things and to preserve them accordingly.  I feel the need to label everything, so personalizing and framing the art seemed like a logical step.  Whilst de-cluttering, I found a whole box of ugly dollar store picture frames.  Throwing them out seemed really wasteful, even if they were just hogging space.  So, I decided to resolve two problems, and this idea was born:

This project is actually fairly cheap to do if you have a handful of items around the house. The handstamped jewelry craze hit my house in full force in 2012, so already had the stamps on hand.  This project literally cost me nothing, but it can get pricey if you don't have them at your disposal (it never hurts to check with a crafty friend, either!).  Altogether, this project took about 30 minutes.

You Will Need

Picture frame

Spray Paint

Aluminum rectangle, square, or oval for stamping

Metal Stamps (mine were $19.99 at Hobby Lobby and I used a 40%off coupon)

Steel bench block (to stamp on)

Hammer

Sharpie

Paper towel and a dab of rubbing alcochol

Heavy glue (E-6000, ModPodge Dimensional Magic, Gorilla, SuperGlue)

A piece of your child's beautiful art

Directions

Start by sanding your picture frame.  Lots of Dollar Tree frames are wood with an ugly fancy shiny finish.  That shiny finish will not hold spray paint evenly, so just knock the shine down a bit with sandpaper.  It doesn't have to be perfectly sanded, just enough to rough up the surface. (I actually couldn't find my sandpaper in the maze of craft chaos during the purge, so I used an emery board! Don't tell!)

 Spray your frame evenly with your choice of paint color.  Mine took a couple of coats, and I let it dry completely in between coats.  I honestly wasn't sure how the ugly fancy picture frame would take the paint.   After you get it painted, set it aside for the time to dry completely.  

This is the part where we stamp the nameplate.  Get your hammer, bench block, stamps, and an your *piece of aluminum* to stamp.  

*You can buy stamping blanks at Michael's or Hobby Lobby for fairly cheap (under $5) and in a variety of finishes and sizes.  I actually cut mine from a larger piece of aluminum with tin snips.  Cutting your own is the cheaper route to go if you plan on making quite a few of these as gifts.  You can find the tin snips I have here, and the aluminum sheets here.  If you followed the links, you can see it's actually pretty cost effective for multiple projects.  If you choose to go this route, make sure to sand the edges of your pieces because those little boogers are sharp!

Take your stamping blank and lay it on your bench block.  It is very important to have a bench block for stamping because it provides non-dentable resistence when you hammer your stamp.  Some people like to tape their stamping blanks down when they are stamping, it ensures that your blank will not move and cause you to double stamp a letter (which is the pits, let me tell you!).  You can also use tape as a guide to keep your stamps perfectly in line.  I'm impatient and self-gratifying, so I choose to eyeball almost everything.  Now, stamp your sentiment.  

I chose "Jonah 2014" because I want to organized the art by year.  I also think this would be great if your child titles his/her artwork, then you could just stamp the title and year (especially if you have an only child).  

The finished product will look something like this.  Often, stamping letters will cause your blank to bow in the middle.  Just simply flip the blank over and hammer it flat (if you have a shiny blank, put a towel between your blank and the bench block to prevent scuffs).

 It's beginning to come together!  Now it's time to make those letters pop out.  The quickest and easiest way to accomplish this is with a Sharpie.  Take your Sharpie and scribble over your letters/numbers.  The ink will settle into the impressions.

This is where the magic part happens.  Dab a paper towel in some rubbing alcohol and wipe it over the Sharpie scribbles.  The ink will lift everywhere but the impressions, leaving you with something that looks similar to this:

The hard part is over!  It's easy-peasy from here!  It's time to grab your picture frame; it should be completely dry by now.  Center your nameplate and secure it down with your glue.  

While the glue dries, prepare your child's artwork for the frame by trimming it to size.  I always use the glass as a guide because I can see exactly where the images are going to be once the piece is framed.  

Now, the final part! Reassemble your frame with your child's masterpiece! 

How cute is this, seriously?  I'm fairly sure that I'll be making these as grandparent gifts for Christmas this year.  

This project turned out even better than I expected.  I think it would be beyond adorable to decorate a hallway with various colors of frames with your kiddos' art in them.  Plus, it frees up so much space and puts their hard work and little imaginations on display. Good luck with your projects and we'd love to see pics!  Thank you for stopping by! 

xo, Karee