Tastes of Culture

Frames for your favourite photos are not particularly cheap, unless you purchase clip frames, which are available in most places. Often you find that you do not like what is available for your picture in the correct size.

So seize the day and just see if you can master this project. If you can, you will be delighted with the results and you are sure to want to make some more.

These would make suitable gifts for any age group and they are likely to be well received. To make them, you do not need many items. So there is not much money to lay out and later on you could work the same idea for other sizes.

What will I require to get started? Surprisingly little really! A piece of wood for your base, 20.5cm x 21.5cm. You could use hardboard. An acetate sheet which needs to be of the same size as your picture, or a thin sheet of plastic, acrylic silk paint, Rekar glue, your picture, a No. 10 paintbrush and a quantity of normal wooden spring pegs. When you choose your picture, keep in mind it needs to be suitably sized in comparison to the frame.

Where do I start on this project? First of all, I suggest that you choose somewhere with a nice flat surface to work on. Make sure that your picture is a suitable size to fit the frame. Take your piece of wood and then centralise your photo or picture on to this. You could mark the wood with a pencil dot at the four corners of your picture. Then, with your brush, glue the photo to the wood.

Cover the picture with your sheet of acetate, which needs to be the same size. The next step now is to take your pegs. Carefully take one and holding the bottom of it pull the base of both sides in different directions. One forward and one back, so that it separates the peg and remove the spring. All you should be left with now are the two pieces of wood.

Continue doing more pegs until you think you have a sufficient amount to go round the outside edge of the wood and two inner rows. How you group them is an important factor. So I am suggesting that you make a start by working down the sides starting on the left. Start from the top and work downwards. The pegs need to lie on their backs so that the jagged side is up. The thinnest and the longest part of the peg at the top. It will probably take between three to four pegs for this side.

The middle row will need to start with the bottom part of the peg on its back, thus changing the pattern. The third row should be done the same as the first. Repeat this then on the right side. It may be that you need four rows. The pegs have to cover the edge of your picture. The sides should be identical. Now carefully apply the glue and press down hard by putting something heavy on top.

We move on now to the foot of our wood frame and we are going to lay the pegs across this time. Start on the left, with the bulky part of the peg touching the side of the frame. Hence the middle row will start with the long thin part, and the last row with the bulky edge.

Repeat this at the top now. When all this is complete and thoroughly dried, you can then paint the pegs in orange or a colour of your choice. This should not take that long to dry. Any dried flowers can then be stuck to your frame.

I most likely would want to paint my side edges, so personally, I would stick together a few of the leftover pegs and have these so that they just touch the frame. This would make it possible then to paint along with my brush.