Tutorial: Spring Garden Picture Frame

This week is SweetPea and Lil Buddy's last week in preschool.  We've had to rethink our family budget and, unfortunately, part time private preschool just isn't affordable anymore.  I thought it would be nice to help them make a small present to give each of the teachers they've spent time with over the past year.  Last Saturday when we took the kids to Lakeshore Learning for free craft time, I got the idea to modify the project they did into a cute picture frame door hanger.  The ones we made for teacher presents turned out so sweet, I just couldn't help sharing the tutorial.  It's a fun craft for you and your little ones to do together, to give to a teacher, friend, or maybe even someone for Mother's Day.

Materials:
(makes 8 picture frames)

1- package of 75, wide craft sticks (a/k/a the tongue depressors you see in the doctor's office)
3 - packages of mixed flower, leaf and bug foam stickers
1 - package of adhesive acrylic gem stickers
8 - chenille stems
Craft glue (I used Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue)
Scissors
8 photos (I printed mine on ink jet paper, but you can use photo paper too)

Note: The first few steps of this project involve a lot of glue.  If your child isn't used to handling a glue bottle, you might want to do these steps yourself (mine are 2 and 4 and my 4 year old hates getting all sticky with too much glue, so I did this part),  Also, the glue takes a little time to dry, so if you're in a hurry you may consider hot glue instead, in which case, you definitely want to do that part yourself!

1) Lay two craft sticks parallel, left to right. On the sides facing up, squeeze a line of glue.  Place your photo, right side up, centered between the two sticks.

2) Take two more sticks and squeeze glue across them, then stick them glue side down, on top of the first two sticks and the picture.  It should look like this...

3) Take the last four sticks and glue two to the left of the picture and two to the right, like pickets of a fence.

4) Now for the fun part!  Let your little one go crazy decorating the fence with foam sticker flowers.  We put flowers, leaves and ladybugs on ours.  SweetPea embellished everything with self adhesive rhinestones!  The nice thing about this step is you can use your imagination to decorate your frames any way you want.  Use silk flowers, ribbon, fabric flowers, flowers cut out from magazines...you name it!  I chose foam stickers for ours because they don't need any glue, making it easier for the kids (or, well, SweetPea because Lil Buddy decided he wanted nothing to do with the whole thing) to decorate.

5.  The final step is to add the chenille stem hanger.  Loop one end between the pickets on the left, bringing up the a short end and twisting around the longer end.  Repeat this step on the right side...and you're DONE!


This is what our gaggle of picture frame hangers looked like...

It cost me less than $20.00 to buy the craft sticks and stickers at Michael's (I already had the chenille stems, which cost me less than $5.00 for 500 of them at Hobby Lobby!).  Just think...8 frames for under $30!

Have fun with this project and we'd LOVE to see any that you make, so feel free to share.  I'll be away in Disney World next, week, so if I don't get the chance to say it before hand, Happy Mother's Day to all my Momma friends out there in the blogosphere!