How to Make an Instagram Frame

Instagram frames are all the rage at bridal and baby showers, am I right? I made a rustic themed Instagram frame for one of my best friends from college and it was a hit. I’m not exaggerating. This thing was passed around from person to person at the bridal shower. I don’t think a single lady made it out of the shower without getting at least one picture in the frame. It was an awesome celebration!

I picked up this foam core board for $9 at Michael’s. They offered to cut it for me, but I had to wait 20 mins for the girl to come back from lunch. I’m impatient and I’ve got stuff to do. So I opted to do this at home myself.

I measured 9 inches up from the bottom of the frame in multiple points across the board. Then I used a yard stick to draw a straight line connecting all of the marks I made. This will be the large bottom of the frame.

Using the same strategy, I used a speed square and did the same exact thing on the other three sides of the board. But instead of marking 9 inches, I marked 3.5 inches around the other 3 top sides of the Instagram frame. 

Here’s what it looked like after I marked off all the sides and connected the intersections. You can see the frame is starting to take shape with the thin top 3 sides and the thicker bottom side.

You can use a box cutter or a utility knife to cut out the middle. Take your time. You don’t want rigid edges.

After I removed the center, it was ready to wrap! I used a brown paper roll that I bought from Amazon for other projects to cover up the white. Lay the paper across the table and place the frame on top to see how much paper you’ll need to cover the surface.

Think about this next step like wrapping a present. You want to make sure you have crisp corners and straight folds. I used clear packing tape to hold everything in place on the reverse side.

The bottom is shaping up nicely! I repeated the same exact process for the top of the frame. Make sure you put the correct side face down so all the tape is on the back of the frame.

I took the extra time to make sure the corners were nice and crisp when fitting the paper to the frame. I’m glad I did. Then I added a vinyl stencil to commemorate the occasion! You can’t have an Instagram frame without a hashtag for the event! I used transfer paper to add this to the frame. SUPER IMPORTANT: Do not use brand new transfer paper because it will tear the brown paper. I used a piece of transfer paper that I used on multiple projects so the adhesive was not as strong. The vinyl letters went right on and the transfer paper came right off without sticking too much to the brown paper.

The flowers and petals are also from Michael’s. It was a 32 combo pack for $26. Not a bad deal! Take a few minutes to position the flowers and petals in different combinations around the frame. I laid it all out so I could visualize what it would look like before I made the life long commitment of hot gluing them into place. After I settled on a pattern that I liked, I hot glued them into their permanent position.

The rustic Instagram frame was a huge hit at the shower! and look at the happiest bride to be!