How to Make an Inexpensive DIY Wooden Picture Frame | Thrifty decorating

How to make a long DIY picture frame out of wood in minutes.

These wooden picture shelves can be made to the length and width you need and are a great way to display art and photos!

If you do a lot of DIYing, you may have enough wood to make them. If not, they can be made inexpensively with basic pine from the hardware store.

When we moved into this house, I knew right away that I wanted to have something fun on our stairwell walls. This project was specifically on the wall under the stairs:

It needed something — and I envisioned some simple display shelves with photos along that wall.

First I taped some painter's tape to the wall to trace the size of each and figure out how it would look.

I made three, four and five foot shelves. I wanted to go as low on the wall as possible because it just felt right to me.

These shelves only protrude about four inches from the wall.

To make these you will need three pieces of wood – a 1×2 for the front, a 1×3 for the base, and a 1×4 for the back, all cut to your desired length.

You can also build a shelf with 1×4's on the bottom so it's a little deeper. Three inches seemed fine to me, but if you plan on bending a bunch of frames, I'd go with four inches.

You can see what I mean here:

Easy Tutorial for DIY Picture Frame Ledges

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I applied. Wood glue Before assembling the pieces together, but this is not absolutely necessary. There's just one extra precaution to make sure they don't sag under the weight of the frames:

How to create the edges of a photo frame

Here are the three steps to making these quick DIY shelves:

You can see here how they barely take up any space in depth:

I marked where the studs were in the walls and then just chased them through the backs to hang them.

I wasn't worried about the screws showing because I knew the frames would cover them. I don't mind if a pair shows up:

I got some new frames from HomeGoods and some of these Beautiful metal frame from Target. I printed random photos from my phone on my printer at home.

We absolutely love how it turned out. Both my husband and son came to me at different times to say how much they loved it! You know it's good when men see it!

The shelves with the tilted pictures turned out great in the middle — not too busy because I kept the frames in one shape and only two colors. But it fills the space beautifully because I went down and filled the wall:

$Image of pottery for a fraction of the price$

It's nice to remove your photos from the phone, right? I'm so bad about it. I got pictures from recent trips and random snapshots and I love every single one!

I especially like how they follow the angle of the stairs. It just makes it more visually appealing:

We have plenty of space behind the sofas but it would work great with less space as they are not deep at all.

I am so excited with them! I especially love that they were so cheap and quick. I made all three and hung them in less than an hour.

They will look great painted black or white too.

I didn't even remove the edges, just worked around them. 🙂

I spent $30-something. On all three Because I went with selected pine (it doesn't have knots). If you use cedar regularly and don't mind a slightly more rustic look (or if you're painting!) you'll spend a lot less.