DIY Light Up Flower Photo Frame

I recently got myself back into the world of Pinterest and although I haven't got used to it and haven't been very constantly active on it yet, I have found some lovely pins, which have in turn provided inspiration. One thing I stumbled across and loved was this DIY flowers and fairylights frame and I thought it looked incredibly cute so I decided to recreate it with my own spin on it. I've never seen one of these before but I'd imagine something like this does exist somewhere out there on the web however, from where I'm sitting today, it is a semi original idea, so I hope you like it and if you decide to make one for yourself let me know as I'd love to see them.

I hope these instructions will be easy to follow but DIY posts aren't my typical genre so I'm not used to the conventions as much. I'm also not the best when it comes to DIY but I am very happy with how this turned out and if I can do it, so can anyone else. It does take a while to make but it's 100% worth it in my opinion.

Warning: You may need to do step one and two the day before the rest of the steps to leave time for the paint to dry before you can do everything else.

What You Will Need
Large Wooden Frame (I used an old canvas and just peeled off the back fabric and the image, leaving the wooden frame)
Paint (This can be in whatever colour you want the main body of the frame to be, I went for white and just used acrylic paint that I already owned, which worked really well but other types of paint may work too)
Paintbrush
Hot Glue Gun (The cheapest one I saw was one in Tiger for £5 which is the one I used and it worked a treat for me. It comes with three glue sticks but I bought an extra pack of 8 for £1 from Tiger as well and did end up using one of these too so I recommend getting extra.)
Binding Wire (this is the one I used)
Fairylights
Fake Flowers
Mini Pegs (You can get these online or the black ones I used were 20 for £1 in The Works)
Polaroids (or any other print style you like)

Step One: If you have just a wooden frame or large photo frame you can skip this step but if, like me, you use an old canvas, you need to peel off the fabric on the back of the frame if there is one and then either remove the staples and then the canvas image if its stapled down or if it's glued down like this one, find the edges and peel it away leaving just the frame.

Step Two: Paint the wood in the colour of your choice- skip this step if your frame is already the colour you like. I decided to use the old canvas as a mat to avoid getting paint on the floor or on another surface. I also started painting it outside to avoid mess but as it was a bit windy, leaves and all sorts of other debris kept blowing into the paint and luckily none of it stuck but I didn't want to take the chance so I moved inside. Once the first coating had more or less dried, I did a second coating. You can judge how many coats you want to do based on the paint and the effect it has. I made sure I painted all of the sides bar the one that would be against the wall.

Step Three: Glue the end of the wire to the back of the frame with the hot glue gun, wrap it underneath and back up so that it forms a straight ish line up and then hook it over the top and glue it down at the back of the frame at the top. Cut the wire and do the same again along the frame. You can decide what distance you want between each one yourself, I went for approximately 6/7cm but I didn't measure it out as I didn't think it needed a precise measurement. You can see I have some bright red gloves on which I decided to do as I have a big fear of burns and as a glue gun can get really hot, I wanted to limit the chance of burning my fingers. They were an old pair so it didn't matter if they got glue all over them but they seemed to work a charm and my fingers didn't feel anywhere close to burning the whole time, so I definitely recommend doing something like this. Obviously you still need to be careful as the gun and glue is hot enough to melt a glue stick and therefore hot enough to potentially do some damage.

Step Four: Thread the fairy lights around the wires- I wrapped them about three times round each strip. Using the hot glue gun, glue them to the frame at the top and bottom of each wire to keep them in place. For the frame I used, I had a pack of 40 LED lights (in image above) and a pack of 20 LED lights both from Primark. I had a bit of excess string/lighting so I then wrapped it around the edge of the frame as well, gluing it in place. I then glued the battery switches to the middle piece of wood so once it was finished, I could reach through and still turn them on and off as well as swapping the batteries when it is needed.

Step Five: This step is easier if your flowers have bendable wires attached but if they don't this can be solved by using the same wire you used for the main body of the frame. Place your flowers along the wire and twist the wire around the flower or leaf, the main wire and the fairylights and twist them round several times so that they are secure. You can also use the hot glue gun to glue flowers along the wooden frame if you want to. I expected to use a lot more flowers than I did but as I was doing it, I liked the kind of simplistic effect plus, it meant I had more room and freedom for my photos.

Step Six: Once you have the number of flowers that you want on the frame, you can start clipping your photos on with mini pegs. You can use any style of photo you like but I love the effect of the polaroid style and really recommend them although they are more expensive. I used Photobox to print my photos in the retro style and they were about 30p each which isn't cheap but for the polaroid style, it's the cheapest I found particularly as they often have discounts running so I managed to order it with 30% off. They came in the cutest packaging and I almost didn't want to ruin it but once I'd opened it to reveal the photos, I was even happier, as they were really high quality -think almost card feel- with a gorgeous finish. I will definitely be ordering my other polaroid style photos from them in the future (this isn't sponsored by the way!)

Step Seven: Find a place on your wall and hang it ready for yourself and anyone else to admire. At this stage you can make any adjustments as you see fit and then voila, it is finished!

I love the final outcome of this and think the time it took to make it really paid off. I made this particularly to take to university as I love photos anyway and really want some of my family and friends when I'm away and this seems like the perfect thing for that. I also love it in my room at the moment as it goes really nicely and will be a nice background feature in my videos, hopefully!

I hope you liked my creation and that you enjoyed this post and/or found it useful. If you like what you see and want to recreate it, link me to the final result on twitter or instagram as I'd love to see them. Thank you for reading this post. If you want to read more from me you can follow my social media sites to be notified when I next upload. I also started a YouTube channel so I'd love it if you were to go over and give that some love here- I have my first collab going live tomorrow, which I think is a rather funny video.

Love, Steph x