Fridge Frames

My mom came up with this very clever and cute idea and I decided to show all of you how to do it. Have you ever bought those cheap plastic frames at walmart that stick on your refrigerator? I forgot to take a picture of them to show you exactly what I'm talking about but they are the clear acrylic ones that are usually about a dollar. They don't have a frame and you just slip the picture in between the two pieces to hold it in place. They serve a great purpose but aren't very stylish. So my mom came up with this great way to personalize them.

You will need:
Clear Acrylic Frame
Foam board
exacto knife
pen or pencil
heavy duty glue stick (Martha Stewart brand is my favorite)
Scrapbooking paper and embellishments

extra magnets

skinny elastic

First we need to make a template. Lay the frame on a scrap piece of paper. Decide how wide you want your frame to be. Ours is about two inches on each side. Using a ruler, make four strips that are two inches wide. Lay them on top of your clear plastic frame to make a frame hat slightly covers all the frame edges. This will be a small lip that you will cut out to help hold the frame in place. glue the edges of your template together and trim off any long edges with scissors. Another way to make the template is to lay the acrylic frame down on the paper and measure 1 3/4 inches around every side. Use a straight edge to make a large square. Pick up the frame and then measure 2 inches in from the outside. make a smaller square using your guides and trace that square. Cut it out. Trust me, explaining the template is much harder than making the entire frame.

Once you have the template made, lay it on your foamboard and cut around it using a straight edge. When you are done, you should have a frame from the foamboard that will cover all the edges of the frame with a small lip and enough room on the outside to decorate as you wish.

Now take the acrylic frame and lay it on the middle of the foamboard frame. Trace around the outside of it and cut only halfway through the foamboard. Do not cut all the way through. Using the exacto knife, cut between the two layers of the foam board only as deep as the line that you traced around the acrylic frame. Lift this little piece out and trim the bottom of the lip so that it is even. You should now be able to place your acrylic frame in the foamboard frame but the small lip in the front will help hold it in.

Now using your scrapbook paper, cover the outside of the frame. We wrapped the paper all the way to the back of the frame so that the edges are covered. The back will not show however so it does not have to be perfect.

Now take your scrapbooking embellishments and decorate the frame. There are so many cute options with this. You could use many different things such as buttons, rhinestones, sequins, etc.

After you are done decorating the front, turn it over to the back. Using skinny elastic, place to places of elastic across the back of the frame as shown in the picture. I glued the pieces down and then covered with some heavy duty tape to make sure it stays in place. This simply helps hold the acrylic frame in place while making it easy to remove the acrylic frame and change the picture.

Now the back of your frame will look kinda rough. You can leave it like this if you wish but I quickly covered it with some more paper. After that, I glued a few more pieces of magnet around the outside of the frame just to reinforce the magnets. Now place your photo in your acrylic frame, place inside the foamboard frame and hang!

I really like how neat and organized it makes my refrigerator look. Let's face it, anything that makes me look organized is amazing.




My mom did this great oval one. How creative.

My mom left me her template. I think I'll be making more very soon.
This would be great to top someones gift with this Christmas. I'm also thinking of making one and then slipping in different scriptures that I want to learn. When you have one memorized, it's easy to change to another one. So many great ideas for this.