Seashell Picture Frame

I have a quick little project for you today, this one only took me about an hour to make maybe a little less; I hope it encourages you to make one too.  My guestroom/office is an ocean inspired room with hints of the sea sprinkled throughout the space, when it came time to frame my granddaughter’s new school picture I knew just what I wanted to do with the basic boring frame I had laying around.  The inspiration came form Simply Handmade, the June/July 2011 issue, it was jam packed with lots of great projects and the photo frame was one of them.  This project was in my “To Do” pile ever since that magazine came out; I finally had the perfect reason to make it, no more moving it around the studio to make room for other projects.

Here is what you will need to make your own frame:

Photo frame

Pearls

Assorted Shells

Starfish

Sand dollars

Moss

Hot glue gun, hot glue sticks

**Note:  All my supplies came from Michael's Crafts, except my sand dollars those came from one of my beach excursions, but you can buy those as well.

The first thing I did was place my sand dollars at each edge of the frame to give it the stop and start boundaries, about half way down one side and half way across the top edge.  Next I glued the starfish in the center point between the two sand dollars and worked my way around the frame with several of the larger sea snails and scalloped shells, filling in with smaller shells and finally the pearls.  The book calls for moss around the edges, corners and to fill between the shells, I forgot the moss and added it after I took the photo. It was much easier to work from the larger shells inward toward the starfish and filling in with the smaller shells and pearls, it took away the confusion of what to do first and shows off the focal point items around the frame.  It was just that easy, all done and ready for the photo.

*Tip of the day: use a hair dryer to melt any glue threads left from your glue gun, it will make your project look much sharper.

My granddaughters outfit makes the frame and shells really pop on the ice blue walls. I love it and the frame looks just right in the room.

I hope you enjoyed my seashore photo frame project and it inspires you to make one of your own. I have a lot more projects to share with you on this blog and my other blog as well. Coming up are more decal decorating projects, an Easter tablescape, the family room/kitchen makeover, charming chairs rehab project and so much more.  On the Buttons, Bows & Bling blog there are several sewing projects for the family room/kitchen makeover and a darling knit dress I recently made, keep watching for all of them, they will be posting in the next few days.

See you soon.

Laurette