Make Your Own Baby Picture Frames

From the time your newborn comes home through all the months and years of his or her growth and development, baby pictures will abound throughout not only your household and office, but that of your extended families as well. And although your little one’s pics are already incredibly adorable, how do you find a way to give them that extra-special keepsake touch that will last for years and years?

How about making your own customized, personalized baby picture frames? It’s a simple and fun way to enhance those photos with some added charm and uniqueness and there’s so many great ideas that are not only easy to bring to fruition, but inexpensive too! Customized baby picture frames not only make for great decoration, but they’re also wonderful to give as shower or special event gifts as well. And while you’re at it, you may even discover a hidden creative talent lurking inside that you didn’t even realize you possessed!

Let’s look at an easy way you can design and/or dress up any existing baby picture frame you have around the house or a new one that you’ve recently purchased or received.

The Way of Polymer Clay
Polymer clay is widely accessible at any craft store and in most hobby sections of your local department store. It’s available in an abundance of colors, really easy to work with and very inexpensive. And because it’s moldable, the possibilities for the designs you can create are practically endless. Now for this type of project, you can make the entire frame out of clay, overlay it onto an existing frame or dress up an old frame with cute clay embellishments.

To create a frame completely out of clay, you can choose to roll it out flat to your desired shape and density (not too thin to prevent it from cracking once it’s dry), and then cut out the center in any shape you like too – consider using a heart or other creatively-shaped cookie cutter to give it that special touch. Also think about using any household utensils to add texture and design effects to the piece as well.

Another idea is to roll out different shades of clay in a snake fashion and then place them parallel to each other in a log style, trimming the ends and space for the photo.

Make cute embellishments like ducks, flowers, boats – wherever your imagination takes you – and attach those to the frame. You can even spell out your baby’s name or create a short and sweet message to grandma or grandpa, etc.

Once you’ve got your frame the way you like it, make sure all the pieces are firmly attached and place it on a cookie sheet. Bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 250o then remove and cool.

Afterward, you can choose to use it as is, attach a thin piece of protective plexi-glass (photo plastic available in any craft store) to the back of the frame with a hot glue gun or lay the entire piece over an existing frame of the same dimension attaching it with hot glue as well. Use the same concept for adding embellishments to a plain frame you may already have.

Making your own polymer clay baby picture frames is not only an inexpensive and unique way to display those precious photos, but it can also be a very relaxing, almost therapeutic activity for mom as well.