Who doesn’t have thousands of photo’s on their phone? And if you do, chances are that’s where they’ll stay forever! The good news is that they don’t have to. I’ve got some simple and stylish framing ideas to turn your photos into impactful artworks. But these framing ideas aren’t just for photos. They’re just as great for postcards, small prints, magazine cutouts or even small pieces of fabric.
Usually when we think of framing small pieces whether photos or prints we default to small table top photo frames or we don’t frame them at all. But with these framing idea you can turn your littlest prints into striking wall art. You can choose to frame two or three together or you can make a statement with just one small picture.
Best of all for me is that you can use even the tiniest photos and prints as art and make it stand out. You can also bring simple line drawings or monochrome pieces to life. The framing ideas below will enhance your art, no matter how small it is. So if you’ve never treated small pics as art, here’s how you can bring them to life.
Unexpected ways to frame small pieces of art for big impact
Personalised printable posters from WallEnvyClub
1. Oversized mounts
This is where smaller pieces of art are framed with mounts where the mount takes up a lot more area than the art. You would assume that the art would get lost here but the opposite happens: the small piece of art becomes the focus of the frame. You can frame more than one small piece within a frame and you also don’t need to keep the artwork central. In fact, placing it off-centre creates even more impact.
Frame by Framoku
2. Colour-drenched frames
You’ve likely heard of colour drenching a room where an entire room is painted and decorated in one colour or shades of the same colour. Turns out that colour drenching works just as well for framing small pics and prints. Here the frame is painted in a particular colour and the mount is either the same colour or a slightly lighter shade of the same colour. This is a great way of introducing a hint of colour to neutral spaces and it can enhance even the tiniest pieces of art.
Personalised printable poster with striped background from WallEnvyClub
3. Statement patterned mounts
This is where you use any regular frame whether wooden or metallic and use a patterend mount to frame your art with. The mount can be made of any fabric or paper thats features a pattern or design. Think things like geometrics or florals or really any pattern in any colour that appeals to you. You can keep the art and background colours complimentary for a more minimalist look or contrast colours for a bolder look.
4. Bold-hued mounts
This is similar to no.2 but instead of colour drenching, you use any regular frame and only swap the mount for a bold coloured one. I especially like this for framing black and white art whether thats a simple line drawing, a sketch or a photograph. You can use any colour mount you like but I’m especially partial to muted, earthy tones like dark burgundy, deep olive or dark clay.
All these ideas are simple to DIY yourself and for many of them you’ll likely have all the materials you need. However you can also buy ready printed versions made with your personal photos or pictures or you can buy coloured frames.
Here’s where you can find the artworks featured so you can check it out if you want to buy instead of DIY:
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WallEnvyClub – they have a range of print styles which you can choose from. Each one can be personalised with your photos or artworks and they’ll create it and send you a digital download which you can then get printed.
Framoku – they sell frames and have the more conventional oak, walnut and black frames but they also have colour-drenched frames in a range of styles and colours.
And here’s another frame with a bold mount that’s ready for framing small photos/postcards.
image credits: top and bottom image
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