Slip-covered Photo Frames

These frames are quick, easy, and fun to make!  You can adapt them to any colour scheme, occasion, or seasonal theme.  One year I made a dozen of them as a gift so that the recipient could change them out each month.  You only need one frame and the slipcovers are essentially flat, so they take up little space and are easy to store when not in use.

On the show, I made the slip covers out of felt but you can make them out of fabric or paper.  I’ve personally done them in a cotton canvas fabric and butcher paper with great success.  One of the great things about this design is that because the slip covers just slide right over a plain acrylic frame to jazz it up, you can make a bunch of the covers to coordinate with every season.  Give someone a gift of the frame and then a stack of the covers that they can switch out seasonally!

Materials needed:

An acrylic photo frame

Felt, fabric, or paper

Something to cut the above with – scissors, rotary cutter, paper cutter, or pinking shears

Aleene’s Tacky Glue

Needle and thread or embroidery floss if doing any hand sewing and/or a sewing machine

Embellishments and trims as desired

To make the slipcovers, you want to begin by measuring around the frame and allowing about 1/2 inch along the top and each side.  This amount will vary according to the thickness of the particular frame you are using and whether you are assembling it by sewing or gluing.  Gluing requires more of an allowance than sewing.  Note:  For a 5 by 7 frame, I can get both the front and back of the slip cover out of a single 9 by 12 piece of felt with a bit leftover.

Cut out front and back pieces.  You can use scissors or a rotary cutter (or even a paper cutter if using paper).  Pinking shears make for a really pretty effect.

Determine the size of the “window” you want in your cover to allow the picture to show through.  I found an object lying around my house that was just the right size and was able to trace around this.  Cut out the window.  Save the middle section you have cut out – you can use this for cutting out embellishments for this slip cover or others.

If you want to sew on any elements, now is the time to do so.  I usually use a combination of gluing and sewing for adorning my slipcover.  For buttons, charms, and similar items, I like to sew them on.  For anything else, I use Aleene’s Tacky Glue to adhere them to the slip cover and I do this after the slip cover has been sewn or glued together.

Sew or glue around the top and two sides of the slip cover.  Sewing by hand using a whip stitch or blanket stitch is a nice effect but you can also sew it with a sewing machine or use Aleene’s Tacky Glue to glue the front and back pieces together.

Add any additional embellishments with glue.