You can do a lot with very little. Sometimes, with just the things already laying around your house. Like the children’s toys, coloured pens, a laptop, a phone, and some paper to make stencils.
Read on below to discover some neat photography and framing tips for using parts of photo frames to make your own creative art that will be like no other.
6 Creative Photography and Framing Tricks
1. Frame a water splashed selfie
Take the backing board out of the picture frame and hold just the glazing in front of your face. Have someone spritz the glazing with water, then snap a closeup. It will look like the photo has been taken from outside in the rain with your face against the window indoors.
2. Repurpose old frames into a terrarium
All those smaller frames laying around waiting for an upcycling project, piece them together to make a terrarium. All that’s needed is glue. Glue three rectangle frames together to make a triangle and you have a three-sided glazed terrarium.
It may not be enough for living plants that need high humidity, but it is perfect for adding layers of decorative sand, dropping in some seashells, pebbles or perhaps miniature air plants.
Pop in a battery-operated candlelight and you can even make it illuminate.
3. Make your frames light up
There is no shortage of creative ways to use LED fairy lights. A simple way to use a small set is to place them inside a picture frame. The glazing can be decorated with letter art just by attaching paper templates onto the glazing, then spray painting the glazing.
Apply masking tape over the frame first so that it’s only the glazing that gets a coat of paint. Peel away the letter templates, pop in the LED lights, turn them on and attach the backing cover. Whatever word you stencilled onto the glazing will be illuminated. It’s a fancier way to display word art. Like Family, Home, Life, or a grounding word of the year you set to use a reminder of your yearly goals. Like Fun to remind you to step away from the computer or get off of Netflix and enjoy life.
4. Design with gemstones
Gemstones are not just for jewellery. You can use them for art too. Use a stencil to outline your design, then glue gemstones to acrylic glazing or directly onto a mount board. Combine this with an LED light up frame to make the gemstones shimmer with the back light.
5. Make print art from toys in the children’s toy box
When there are children, there are toys. Some are huge, some are electronics, some are scale model cars, others miniature farm animals. The latter can be blown up with a camera. By placing the toy in front of your computer screen, a custom backdrop can be added.
Stack a book on the keyboard of a laptop for height, place the glazing on the book then place an object on that for taking a photo of. Put a backdrop onto the laptop screen and the glare creates a mirror effect under the object, while the backdrop adds a creative touch to the photo.
You could have a larger-than-life looking rabbit photographed in the woods or a miniature train that looks like it’s flying or floating on water. Numerous photography tricks can be done with the camera on a smartphone using a backdrop on a laptop screen.
6. Create your own colour filters
Camera filters are not needed for overlays. A clear polythene bag placed over the phone can then be coloured in to cover the camera lens. You could take photos with green on one side, purple on the other. Whatever colour you want a selfie or someone’s photo to have layered over the picture, colour in the polythene, cover the lens, then snap the photo. No digital filters are required.