Foam Frames

• There is so much you can do with foam to make picture frames, it's hard to decide what type of frame you want to make. You can make regular 5-by-7 or 8-by-10 frames, or you can make holiday-themed frames. Maybe you've just taken a great vacation and you want to make the frame reflect that vacation. Hobbies such as golf, hunting or football also make great themes for these frames. Anyone can make a foam frame.
  
  

Cutting the Frame

• If you decide you want a rectangular frame, measure it out on the foam and, using a ruler, draw a line from one corner to the next. Cut along the line using a craft knife and putting the foam on top of a piece of wood or thick cardboard. For the picture cut-out, measure the part of the picture you want to be able to see and transfer that measurement to the center of your foam. Then cut all the way around using the craft knife. This will give you a nice clean line all the way around the cut out.
  
  You can make the picture cut-out a circle, oval or square if you want. You can also use stencils and do some holiday-themed frames. Cut out Easter bunnies, Easter eggs or Bibles for Easter. Christmas is easy with Christmas Trees, stars and Christmas balls. Cut out graduation hats for frames for your young graduates or balloons for birthdays. There are endless decorations for each holiday. Make sure the decoration you are cutting out is large enough to hold the photo that you want to put in it. For small pictures, you can make frames that you can attach to magnets for the refrigerator or string to hang on the Christmas tree.
  
  

Decorating the Frame

• This is the fun part of making the frames. You can use ribbons, buttons and bows. You can cut out decorations from other pieces of foam. The craft store will have a huge variety of small embellishments that can be glued to the frames, and the best ones to use are the embellishments they make for scrap booking. You can use wiggly eyes, puffy paints and fine point permanent markers to decorate these frames. There are many forms of glitter that work well, too. There is glitter dust, regular glitter and even glitter stars. You can use any type of craft glue for this project but foam glue made especially for foam projects is best.
  
  

Attaching the Back to the Frame

• You can glue the picture right to the frame if you want, but it's best to attach a back to it. This protects the picture from being damages by hanging or being dropped. Just cut a piece of card stock or cardboard slightly smaller than the foam. Put a small bead of glue around the outer edge of the sides and bottom, leaving the top open to drop in the picture. Then just attach a picture hanger to the back with some contact cement, drop in your picture and hang on the wall.
  
  If you are making refrigerator magnets with your frames, glue on the magnet instead of the picture hanger and stick to the refrigerator. While making Christmas tree ornaments instead of card stock on the back use another piece of foam and decorate it to look like an ornament. Then use a hole punch at the top and run a piece of ribbon through. Tie the ribbon into a pretty little bow and hang on the tree.