Frame finishing tutorial...Part 1

Hi Everyone,

I am still having technical difficulties with the second method's pictures so I am going to redo them all today. In the mean time here is the first method of finishing those adorable frames.

1, Choose a few strips of fabric or scraps and make a piece of your own fabric from them. I decided to use some 2 1/2 inch strips from my scrap bin in pinks and reds for Valentine's day. Make sure that you have 2" to 3" larger than your frame when you are finished piecing them together.

2. take your piece of cardstock or poster board and draw around your frame on the outside and on the inside of the opening. You will need to do this twice and cut two pieces. Laying aside one piece for use on the back of the frame.

3. Cut out each piece just inside the marked line on the outside of the frame and outside the marked line on the center, in other words you are cutting off your marked line.

4. Lay one of your cardboard pieces on your sewn piece of fabric making sure there is at least 1" on all sides.

5. Place your ruler on the template and past the edge by 1" cut all the way around. The easiest way to do this is leave the piece in one place and rotate your cutting mat. Then you won't have to reposition the pieces each time you cut.

When you are done it will look like this.

6. Turn the fabric over and on the wrong side, with the cardboard centered, mark all the way around the outside. (You will see in the second photo I marked the inside too but that isn't necessary I realized later.)

7. Take a scrap of batting the same size as the frame and lay it on the back side of the fabric so that it is inside the drawn line. You do not want your batting to be larger in this case because it will make it more difficult to wrap around the frame.

8. Pin baste in your preferred method, I like to use straight pins on small items because they are easier to remove when I am quilting.

9. I am sorry I didn't get a picture of this, but I straight line quilted 1/4 inch away from each seam on both sides. You can see the quilting in the finished picture at the top. Quilt as desired.

10. Place the cardboard back on top of the batting and mark around the inside of the frame/heart.

11. Cut out the center leaving approximately an inch inside the marked line.

12. Clip the corners to within 1/4 inch of the marked line.

13. Place the cardboard back on the batting. Get your amazing wonder glue (E-6000) and start turning the inside of the frame one clipped piece at a time. This take a little patience because the glue doesn't dry super fast. The best way to do this if you don't have a ton of patience is to use binder or large paper clips to hold the pieces down while they dry. This glue is not like super glue in that it won't glue your fingers together but it will get on them and dry. It is rubbery so you can peal it off or rub it off. Once it is dry it is water proof and super strong. You might have toput a little extra under the batting because it seams to absorbe the glue and a little under the fabric to hold it to the batting.

14. Once you have the inside of the frame fabric glued to the cardboard. Glue the rightside of the frame to the inside of the cardboard. I put glue around the center and around the outside... I was working fast so didn't get a picture of the glue on the outside.

It will look like this.

15. Put a dab of glue on the each corner of the frame and fold the corners in as shown in the photos.

16. Glue all of the edges around the frame.

17. Take the second piece of cardboard that you cut and trim the inside of the frame about 1/4 inch so that it fits around the iside clips. Since the frames don't have a back you need to leave the wholce center open to put a picture in it. Make sure that the sides and the center are slightly smaller than the frame, once you have the backing fabric on you don't want it to show from the front of the frame.

18. Cover the cardboard the same way that we did earlier with the cardboard and frame. I just used one pice of fabric for this.

19. Glue the back to the frame.

All done! Ain't she cute?