Picture Frame Crafts: Great for Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Grandparent's Day

Mother's Day, Father's Day, and Grandparent's Day all offer the opportunity for children to make fun crafts with their pictures in them. It is much cheaper to have a child create a cardboard and construction paper made picture frame then it is to purchase a standard one at the store. More importantly though, a handmade gift is more special. This makes a handmade picture frame with a picture of your child an absolute wonderful gift choice for these holidays.

Most picture frames only require the use of half a cereal box and so you can usually get multiple crafts out of one cereal box. Two picture frame crafts that both use half a a cereal box worth of cardboard are a double sided one and a four sided one. The double sided one that can be displayed on a shelf or table and shows a picture on either side of it. The standing four sided one stands and shows two pictures on either side of it. This one uses the same amount of cardboard as many other picture frame crafts, but it uses twice as many pictures. Both can be used to display one side at a time so that you can turn them around to display new pictures from time to time.

To make these crafts you will need six 4 x 6 pictures, one cereal box, construction paper, glue or tape, 2 twisty ties, scissors, and a hole puncher. The best cereal boxes for these crafts are generally on the small side and should be able to comfortably fit two 4 x 6 photos with a border around each picture. If you have only large cereal boxes you can trim down the sides to accommodate to the crafts needs. Cut out the sides of the cereal box that you are using and trim down the sides if necessary. Take one of the sides and cut it into half, leave the other whole. Next cut out pieces of construction paper to cover the cardboard. You need one piece to cover one of the pieces of card board, and 4 small pieces that each cover a quarter of the cardboard. Consider using a variety of colors for your construction paper.

Now with all of the cutting out of the way you and your child can glue the paper on to the construction paper. Glue the large piece of construction paper to the large piece of cardboard. Then fold it over to the side with the construction paper on top. For the four sided picture frame craft stack the two small pieces on top of one another and use the hole puncher to punch two holes on one side of the pieces. Then insert a twisty-tie in each hole wind them up to connect the two pieces of cardboard. Next, glue the other pieces so that each small piece of cardboard has construction on either side. If you prefer you can glue construction paper on either side of the other picture frame craft as well. Lastly, glue on the pictures of choice, one on either side of the two sided frame and one on each side of the four sided frame.

You and your child will find that picture frames crafts are great to make for holiday gifts. They require very little supplies so it is easy to make many of them, making them ideal if you are dealing with large groups of children. Whether your helping your child make a picture frame for a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or friend you two can have fun choosing your favorite pictures and favorite colors of construction paper. For step-by-step pictures and instructions of these two crafts and other fun and easy picture frame crafts visit EasyToddlerCrafts.com.