Altered Frame by Candy Spiegel

This frame began as a rather simple, boring and very inexpensive, black frame that I picked up at Wal-Mart for next to nothing during a Black Friday sale. After a few alterations, it is my favorite frame in the house.


I started by adding a strip of Art Glitter’s Double-Sided Sticky Tape around the frame. I then topped it with Gold Leaf for an elegant addition.

Then, because everything needs to sparkle, I altered some Prima flowers with glitter (518 Oak Microfine Opaque and 517 Aged Gold Microfine Opaque) and Small Clear Glass Beads. This process is really simple – I took Designer Dries Clear Adhesive and dabbed it randomly onto the petals I wanted to sparkle. Some flowers have a tiny bit and others are nearly covered. Then, I used a spoon to pour the glitter or beads onto the flower, shook it upside down and let it dry. It is that simple!


That finished, I began adhering a variety of flowers, charms and buttons to the frame. The birdhouse, birdcharms and all of the flowers, with the exception of the one in the lower left hand corner, are from Prima. The one in the lower left is from Petaloo. The heart charm is from My Mind’s Eye and the sparklers (buttons) are from Webster’s Pages.

I used Designer Dries Clear Adhesive to adhere everything. This is my absolute favorite wet adhesive and I use it all of the time, but I was still impressed when I used it on this project. For starters, everything, including the rather heavy (for papercrafting) bird cage is held on by a tiny drop of the glue. All of it is extremely secure.

But, although I know it “dries clear” I didn’t realize how clear until I used it to attach the clear sparklers. I’ve included a close up photo because you can’t see any adhesive at all … it looks like they are simply floating on the frame. AMAZING!

Even if you don’t go quite as elaborate as I did on this frame, I hope you’ll consider applying some of these techniques to a frame you own to make it special.