I’ve been searching for a picture frame for the fridge for a while. I just wanted a regular size frame to clean up the look of my fridge instead of overlapping papers and pictures all stuck on haphazardly. I have had 0 luck though and instead I found a wooden crafting picture frame for $1.99 at Michael’s. It’s just a simple wooden frame with no glass that is very light, perfect for the fridge.

These crafting frames are essentially limitless, you could do anything!

Materials

Frame
Magnets
Watercolour paints

I also used a wood carving knife, a wood burner and white pen for details.

This is one of those projects that can be as simple or complicated as you like. It would be a great painting project with kids. The frame would look great in nice abstract colours.

To start

To start I sketched out the image I wanted. I wanted to do a little carving to give it some depth so I marked the sections I wanted to carve out by shading them in. Most wooden crafting things are made from a soft wood so it’s important to be really gentle while carving as it would be easy to accidentally carve too far. I carved around the trunk of the tree to give it some shape and interest.

The Painting

The next step was to paint. First I did a base paint then added in details after. The paint tends to spread with the grain of the wood so it’s a little different than painting on watercolour paper. The more water you use the more the paint spreads so a dryer brush is better. Another tip is to start a colour in the center of where you want it and move it to the edges instead of the other way around. This way any spreading will be controlled.

For the details in paint I used an even dryer brush not wanting to pick up much from the under layer.

The Burning

I used a basic wood burner to line the painting. This could have been done with marker or paint too but I like the look of the burned in lines. It was important to let the paint dry first as wet wood doesn’t burn so well. One of the key things for pyrography is patients, I struggle a little with this it can be a really slow process.

The Details

My final step was to add in some highlights. I used a white gel pen and highlighted everything and even added in a couple more details.

The Finish

The very last step was to add the magnets. I started with 4, one at each corner then continued until it held itself up on the fridge sufficiently. This will vary depending on the strength of the magnets you find. I ended up using 12, next time I will get better magnets.

This one turned out much more colourful than I had intended but it looks great with a black and white picture. I think I will do another one more monochrome and use it for a coloured image.

DIY Magnetic Picture Frame