With everyone taking more and more pictures with their smartphones there really isn’t a lot of love for picture frames these days. But I personally love to print off my digital photos and place them inside a picture frame. If you want to do the same you could always buy a new photo frame from a shop, but I think these ten made from various recycled things are a much better option. If you enjoy any of these recycled picture frames you should also check out Ecoy who make amazing eco-friendly bamboo products to help combat the ever-growing plastic pollution problem. In the meanwhile, let’s gather up some other things and recycle them…
10 – Colouring Pencils
Everyone has a box of old colouring pencils that they no longer use, so why not turn them into something colourful to display a nice picture. You can use any sort of melted plastic to make the frame, then just place the pencils around the edge.
9 – Newspapers
Not only is this pretty easy to make, but I also love the cutout words they have used to give it an added touch of personalisation. Although it might be harder than you think to find loving, personal words in a newspaper these days.
8 – Glass
You might think it is the end of a mirror when you accidentally break it, but this repurposed picture frame gives that broken mirror a new lease of life that it wouldn’t have had otherwise.
7 – Jigsaw Puzzle
For a photo frame for a child’s bedroom, this is a great idea. It is colourful enough to brighten up any room and a good use of an old jigsaw puzzle (especially if it has one piece missing). The colourful the jigsaw image, the better the frame will look!
6 – Magazines
Most homes have a stack of old glossy magazines laying around and you could always and this is a great way to recycle them rather than throwing them away. All you really need to learn to make this picture frame is how to fold the pages of the magazines to make the blocks that are used. Then the rest is all about copy and glue.
5 – Paint Sample Cards
If you do a lot of decorating you might have lots of these paint sample cards laying around and if you get yourself a deep shadow photo frame you could stick them to it to make something beautiful from the oddest of things.
4 – PC Keyboard
For the little geek in the family, there aren’t many picture frames they would like in their room. But find yourself an old broken computer keyboard and you might make one of these from it and I am pretty sure they will cherish it for a long time. It’s a better use for them than simply throwing them away that is for sure.
3 – Bicycle Chain
If you have a broken bike chain you might want to hold off throwing it away and make a pretty cool picture frame from it. Sure, it will need to be cleaned and scrubbed before use, but I think it would be well worth the effort.
2 – Wine Corks
While it would be fun to drink all the wine and save the corks you will need to go through a lot of wine to get enough corks to make a picture frame. But these days you can simply buy bags of old corks on the cheap.
1 – Spanners
All you need is 2 large and 2 small spanners and a few magnets to make this picture frame. If the magnets are strong enough they should hold both the frame and the picture together.