Glitter Fabric Frame Fun by Emily M. Miller

Happy Dia de los Muertos to you all! Day of the Dead has become a favorite holiday of mine. Living in Arizona for the past 20 years has put me in tune with the traditions for this holiday celebrated in Mexico and around the world in many cultures. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. It is particularly celebrated in Mexico, where it attains the quality of a National Holiday. The celebration takes place on November 1st and 2nd, in connection with the Catholic holidays of All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. (I copied all this from Wikipedia)

I love all the imagery and wonderful colors that remind me of Mexico and Day of the Dead. When I saw this material I just had to glitter it! I wanted to put it in a recycled 5 x 7 frame I had, but 5 x 7 didn’t showcase the material enough. So I covered the frame with it too! This can be done with any size frame.

Take out the back cardboard in your frame. Center it over the backside of your fabric and trace around it. Then move in at least ½ inch in on all sides and draw another rectangle. This inner rectangle is the one you will cut out and place in the center of your back cardboard. With fabric scissors cut out rectangle and 4 sides as shown by blue lines below. This does not have to be perfect, I repeat, it does not have to be perfect!

Lay rectangle on cardboard and place into frame to get an idea of where it should go. Draw guide lines at corners of fabric and take out of frame. Pour some Designer Dries Clear adhesive into a tray and add a few drops of water. Using a foam brush paint glue onto cardboard in between guide lines. You don’t have to be perfect here either, just close to the edges. Hold your fabric over glue and lay it down. Again, it doesn’t have to be perfect! Do you see a pattern forming?

Paint glue onto remaining edges of cardboard and glitter with Ultrafine Opaque #79 Black. Set aside to dry.

Lay remaining 4 fabric sides on frame to see where they need to go. Slide them down far enough to go just around the inside edge of frame and to make sure all the diagonals cover frame. We are only concerning ourselves with the front and the sides of the frame, we will take care of the back later. And guess what, it doesn’t have to be perfect! Paint glue on one side at a time and glue rest of fabric onto frame.

Use backside of frame as your guide and cut off remaining fabric…doesn’t have to be perfect! Using your Designer Dries Clear bottle with the Ultrafine Metal Tip attached, glue down corners as if you were wrapping a present, it there is excess over hanging cut it off before gluing. Smash and smooth fabric corners into place (you’ll understand when your doing it, it works great!). I have covered countless frames and even wood furniture this way and the DDC really hold the fabric for ages!

Take your double-sided Sticky Tape and run it along fabric ends. Lay the sticky tape down one side at a time and remove the protective red covering first before moving on to next side. Then glitter exposed tape with #79 Black.

Now you can go back to your cardboard piece and start glittering it. First straighten your fabric edges with Sticky Tape just like above. This time I glittered it with Dazzler #D15 Sea Nymph and filled in with Ultrafine Pearlescent #185 Varsity Blue.

Glitter your fabric as desired. Start with your darkest color first and keep going until all colors are done. Here’s what I used, in this order: Ultrafine Pearlescent colors - #175 Retro Red, #186 Purple Polkadot, #185 Varsity Blue, #182 Astro Turf, #178 Duck Tail. Ultrafine Transparent colors - #94 Key Lime, #93 Lemone.

Set aside and glitter frame in same manner, doing one side at a time, allowing each side to dry some before moving onto next side. Let dry completely.

Assemble frame. You can use spacers made from black foam core if you want your cardboard piece to be recessed. As you can see, my finished one isn't "Perfect", but it'll do just fine! Enjoy!