Making Natural Bark Picture Frames
Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 04:09PM We often get compliments from visitors on our bark framed wildlife photos, so we thought we’d share with you just how easy they are to make. Though they are quite delicate, we’ve had ones on the walls for years, so they’re certainly durable. These frames use no glue, and being made from bark they’re very eco friendly indeed.
All you need to create a natural bark frame is your photo, a piece of cardboard the same size as the photo, four pieces of pieces of bark, and about 1 and a 1/2 metres of natural string – like jute or hemp. To avoid using glue, the two pieces of bark used at the top and bottom of the frame need to be cylindrical with a small gap where you can slot the photo in. So when searching for bark, you need to look for those tight, rounded ribbon-like strips, that you can use to support the photo and the cardboard. Be sure to check there are no critters inside these pieces of rounded bark! It makes it easier to tie the frame together if the side pieces are also not flat, but have a slight curve to them as well.
So armed with your pieces of bark, firstly work out which ones look best on which sides. Then slot the photo and the cardboard into the bottom rounded piece.
Cut a piece of string about 30cm long, then take one of the side pieces of bark, position it in place, and wrap the string around where it joins the bottom pieces of bark. Tie with two simple knots at the back of the frame – you want the knots to be tight enough that they’ll stay in place, but not so tight that they start to break the bark.
Take the top piece of bark, slot it into place, and tie the side piece to the top piece. Then put the other side piece of bark in place, do the same, and see the frame come to life! It can help to have someone give you a hand when tying the pieces together.
Now all you need to do is attach a piece of string to hand the frame. You can simply use the string as it is, or create a plaited hanging string like I’ve done below. Simply tie the hanging string around the top two joins of the frame, and it’s done! Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you can make a frame in less than ten minutes – it’s finding the right pieces of bark that’s the key, and that often takes a lot longer than actually making the frame!
Whenever you feel like a picture change, you can just carefully untie the knots, and pop in a new photo.
Reader Comments (4)
What a great idea and looks amazing, esp with nature photography! I'd lvoe to try this with my children. (Hi BTW! I found you through dixiebelles blog)
V interesting blog too, I'll be back to read more!
Very, very nice, thank you for sharing this. We may have to make some up for Christmas this year.
Thanks Mike and Mountainwildlife - we're glad to hear you like our frames and have fun making your own!
Nice post, i was looking for mirror frames using bark and found this.
Photo-frames from barks in an eco-friendly way is a nice Idea!
Thanks for sharing it with us :)