One thing I love about summer is that I have more time to craft! I love thrift store shopping and I end up collecting items with the intent to use them in a craft or re-purposing them in some way. On a recent visit to one of my favorite thrift stores up in San Luis Obispo, CA  I found these frames.

And to make the shopping trip even better, it was half-off all pictures and frames day! That brought the price for each of these to $1.50. Deal!

I knew what I wanted to do with them immediately. I wanted to create a magnetic shadow box frame so that I could display my daughter’s artwork and change it out easily.

I’m missing the photo of the metal that I put inside. Home Depot (love them!) sells pre-cut 12″x12″ thin metal sheets, so I got 2 of those and glued them to the background with some E6000. This was the most expensive part of the project. The sheets cost about $6.00 each. Also, I recommend bringing a tape measure with you and verifying the size. One of the sheets ended up being slightly too large and would not fit in the box. I returned it got one that fit.

Over the top of the metal, I used pretty scrapbook paper and found two patterns that coordinated well together. (Michael’s 5 sheets/$1 sale!) I applied a thin layer of Mod-Podge, carefully applied the paper, smoothed it down and let it dry.

After it was dry, I hung them on the wall. They look great on their own with the felt/burlap flower magnets (yes, I made those too! and will post the steps for those soon)

Or with artwork installed.

Have you come up with a creative way to display your child’s artwork? We’d love to hear about it.