DIY Rustic Wood Picture Frame

Do you remember the DIY picture frame that I posted a while back??  It was basically a piece of MDF, cut to size and painted, inspired by this post from Bower Power.

Well, after I did the faux shiplap treatment to the wall in our family room, I knew that I would have to make some adjustments to our family photo frame.  This is how it looked after I painted the wall.

Ugh.  The frame just kind of melted into the background of the wall…not a good look. (sorry for the blurry pic – I zoomed in so you could see a bit closer)

I pondered how to fix this for a few weeks.  I went to Micheal’s and Joann’s to price custom framing, which was around $150 for a mat, a frame, and no glass.  I actually thought about doing that until I saw this post from Young House Love.  They made these wooden frames for some large posters, and even though I was dealing with a MDF and not a poster, I figured I could adapt it a bit.  This was the pic from their post that inspired me.

So here’s my made up, slightly jerry-rigged process for how to make a DIY, mounted, framed, picture frame, ha!

I went and picked up 2 boards of 6-foot, 1″ x 2″ pine from Home Depot.  I originally had them cut it to my specs, but it was off by a 1/4″.  They do allow a 1/4″ variance in their cuts, but since I needed this to be precise, I went back and they allowed me to return the cut boards for 2 more 6-foot pine boards.

Once I got home I decided to muster up the courage to use our miter saw.  

I have never used this before and I was pretty intimidated, but I wanted this project to be done, so I found a YouTube video on how to use it and cut myself 4 pieces to fit my exact specifications.  Yay!!!

Once I made my four cuts (2 boards, 21″ long and 2 boards, 31 inches long) I sanded and stained the boards.

And because I didn’t want to mess it up using nails or screws (I figured I got lucky with making perfects cuts, couldn’t mess up now), I used wood glue and glued the boards to the MDF frame. And for extra good measure, held them in place with hand weights and a bottle of juice!  (that’s the jerry-rigging part, lol).

I also painted the outer edges of the MDF with a bright white paint to bring more contrast against the shiplap wall, which is painted Alabaster from Sherwin Williams.  Those “tabs” are velcro Command Strips that I used to adhere the picture to the MDF board.

I only let it dry for 2 hours before I hung it up.  The bottle said to wait 24 hours, but I was getting too antsy!

I feel like breathing a sigh of relief that I was actually able to pull this off.  I’m so glad that I mustered up the courage to use the saw.  Ladies, you can do this kind of stuff!  I am definitely going to start using it more…maybe some board and batten?? Haha!  I might need a little more practice first, but I’m really proud of how this turned out!