Mother's Day is fast approaching, and it can be hard to find the perfect Mother's Day gift! This year, why not let your kids or students make a Yarn Wrapped Picture Frame as a perfect kid made gift? Any mama or grandma would love to receive a sweet picture frame and special photo of their babies or grandbabies! This yarn craft is also great for letting kids work on their fine motor skills and squeezing in a bit of spelling or letter recognition.
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Gather Your Materials
- unfinished wooden picture frame (ours were cheaper at our local craft store)
- yarn
- alphabet beads (A horizontal picture needs beads with a vertical hole. A vertical picture needs beads with a horizontal hole.)
- invisible thread
- photo
Wrap The Frame With Yarn
Start with a plain picture frame. You can find them at your local craft store. Nothing fancy needed!
Take the back out of the frame, so you'll be able to wrap the yarn through.
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Choose some yarn in your recipient's favorite colors. We went with pinks, greens, and purples (which were probably more my daughters' favorite colors than their grandmothers). Tie an end of the yarn on the back of the frame.
Let your kids start wrapping the frame, moving all around the opening.
You can make several rounds in different colors, or you could hold several strands together as you wrap. If the ball or skein of yarn is too big to fit through the opening, just cut off along strand and work with that.
Wrap until you've covered a good amount of the frame. While you want it to be fairly snug, you don't want it super tight. There needs to be a bit of give in the yarn so that the frame backing and photo will fit back in the grooves.
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You could leave them just like this, and it would still make a lovely gift. Add a photo and any mom or grandma would be thrilled! We added an extra touch, though, with some alphabet beads.
Add A Special Message
Decide on a special message to add. "Me and Mom," "I Love Grandma," or " Mommy and (child's name)" would all be great!
If you have a horizontal picture, you need beads with a vertical hole. If you're using a vertical picture, regular beads with a horizontal hole will be fine.
We used invisible thread to add the beads, but it probably wasn't necessary and made this step pretty tricky for the girls to manage. Using yarn or regular thread would probably be a better choice.
Tie your thread or yarn to the back of the frame. You'll be wrapping it around and around the frame again, just like you did with the regular wrapping. This time, though, add one letter bead during each wrap.
Keep the thread pulled tight, and the beads will stay in place. You can adjust the spacing as you go, and will be able to move them around a little even when you've finished adding all the letters.
[Related Read: Rainbow Yarn Wrapping]
After you've added all the letters, simply tie the yarn or thread off in the back. The invisible thread was so tricky to work with that I ended up having to tape the thread in the back to secure it.
Adjust the beads as necessary. Find them a nice little place to nestle in.
Add your photo and it's ready to go! We had no trouble fitting the picture and frame backing in to the outside of the frame. The yarn wasn't too bulky for it to all squeeze in.
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