Make a DIY Fabric Covered Frame to gift on Father's Day! This easy to make frame is made from recycled cardboard, fabric, and a little ribbon. Its the perfect keepsake to brighten Dad's desk with a little love from home.

I made this frame for my husband years ago and he has loved having it in his office at work. Today I'm making another one with our new family pictures and I'm going to show you how to make one too!

Taking Professional Looking Head Shots

First of all you need Pictures! Don't sweat it if you don't have professional pictures to put in the frame like I do for today's project. You can quickly take head shot of your kids with a phone next to a window that has a light colored curtain (which is what I did originally for the black and white photos above).

Simply position your kid right next to a window that doesn't have full sunlight coming in. Pull out the curtain and have your kid stand against it like a backdrop. Hold the curtain out stretched with one hand and snap the pic with your other hand. This will give you pretty lighting and I guarantee it will look great. Alternatively, you could go outside and have them stand next to a fence near the edge of the shade where the lighting is good and snap a pic of their face there.

1 Hour Printing at Walgreens

Upload the photo to a print on demand shop like your local Walgreens which offers same day printing and usually a generous coupon code. If you want to make your photo black and white, use their edit tool to add a black and white filter, then crop it to the size you like best. Order a 5 x 7 print and don't forget to click through ALL the steps to check out. Also don't forget to add the coupon code which is usually advertised as a banner on the top of the photo home page.

How to Make Fabric Covered Frame that Folds and Stands up

While your pictures are printing, gather the rest of your supplies!

You'll Need

• cereal cardboard - for the backing piece
• cardboard shipping box - for the main frame piece - A thicker cardboard like a bulk box of granola bars from a warehouse store would also work as a substitute for the shipping box.
• hot glue gun
• 3/8" (9mm) ribbon
• Fabric - a Fat Quarter (18" by 22") for each photo will be more than enough
• white card stock paper
• ruler
• fabric and craft scissors
• Cutting mat and X-acto knife (optional)
• Names and ages printed on white cardstock (optional)
• metal brads (optional for decoration)

Fabric Covered Frame Instructions

Cutting

For each photo being framed cut...

• 1 rectangle 6" x 8 1/2" from the shipping box for the main frame piece
• 1 rectangle 5 3/4" x 8 1/4" from the cereal cardboard for the backing piece
• 1 rectangle 5 1/4" x 7 1/4" out of white card stock paper
• 4 strips of ribbon each about 6 1/2" long

1. Open up a recycled cereal box and medium/large shipping box to lay it flat. Make your cuts from the flat panels where there are no creases. Regular scissors work for cereal box cardboard but cardboard from a shipping box is corrugated and a lot thicker. I find it easiest to use an X-acto knife with a ruler and cutting mat to cut this type of cardboard. If you don't have an X-acto knife then regular scissors can work. Don't worry if your cuts aren't a smooth as mine are, they will be covered by fabric.

2. Lay your cardboard pieces on top of a piece of fabric. Cut the fabric about 1 1/4" bigger all the way around than the cardboard pieces. Repeat for each piece of main frame and backing cardboard. You can choose a different fabric color for each photo if you wish. Make sure the fabric is pressed and free of wrinkles.

How to Wrap the Fabric Around the Cardboard

3. Wrap the fabric around the cardboard and add beads of hot glue to each side to hold it in place. I like to start by glueing it in the middle of each side pulling it tight.

4. Then fold and glue the corners so that the raw edges are pointed toward the center.

5. Optional - Stitch around the edge of the main frame piece using your sewing machine equipped with a leather or jeans needle and the stitch length set to 4.0 - 5.0 mm. This is purely for decoration but I think it looks cute. I forgot to not sew my new version, Boo!

Add the Photos

6. Glue the photo onto a piece of white card stock. A little dab of hot glue in each corner works or I like to use a school glue stick.

7. Glue the photo with card stock onto the front of the main frame piece. I like placing the photo about 1/2" down from the top and leaving a larger space toward the bottom especially if you are adding a little name at the bottom.

Add ribbon to the corners

8. Place a ribbon piece over a corner at about a 45 degree angle and a couple of dots of hot glue where the ribbon touches the fabric to hold it in place. Repeat for all corners of each photo. If your ribbon is too thin and you easily see the hot glue through it, you can opt to use Glue Dots to hold the ribbon in place.

Repeat these steps until all of your photos look like this.

9. Lay out the framed photos in the order you would like them to be displayed. Flip them around so they are facing down on the table in the correct order. Pull the ribbons up between each frame piece.

Finishing the Fabric Covered Frame

10. Glue the ribbons from one frame to the back of the adjacent frame piece. Make sure the frames are laying right next to each other with no gap. Continue to glue the ends of each ribbon to the frame next to it continuing in the direction the ribbon is lying. The ribbon from the frame on the left is glued to the frame in the middle and so forth.

11. Take the ribbon pieces on the outside edges of the set of frames and fold them to the back of the frame and glue them in place.

12. Take a piece of backing cardboard and glue it to the back of the main frame with the fabric side up. Place it in the center covering all the raw edges. Use a generous amount of hot glue to hold it in place. Repeat for all the backings.

13. Add names to the bottom of each picture if you wish. On the original frame added a little metal brad to each end of the printed paper name then glued the names to the bottom of each photo. I skipped that part for this project

All done and ready for gifting. Now you have a unique fabric covered frame gift to give a loved one on Father's Day or Mothers Day!

Looking for more ideas to make for Father's Day? Check out this post...

6 Easy Handmade Gifts to Sew for Dad

Happy Making!