Home Decor and DIY: DIY Frame Shelves

DIY Frame Shelves

Many of you know I have been finishing off a bedroom for one of my girls over the past several weeks. I closed off a loft space upstairs to give her a new room, and I have been busy getting it all decked out. Last week I shared her DIY corbel desk I created for under $85. I decided to fill up the blank wall space above it with these really cute and simple DIY frame shelves! Look how fun they are!

This is such simple project, and a great way to reuse old frames or to dress up cheap frames. I started with some old frames I used on my old photo wall. Most of these frames were from Walmart and Hobby Lobby, and they were all super cheap. I started by taking the glass and backing out and removing any hardware on the back leaving a blank frame. Then, I measured both sides of the frames.

Next, you will need some 1×4 boards. I used all scrap for mine. I actually had scrap 1×4 MDF, but pine will work! Really anything will! You will make two cuts for each side. So, I had 2 cuts at 8″ and 2 at 11″ since that was the measurement of my frame. Each frame will be different, so just cut yours to size.

Building a frame shelf — Next I added a line of Gorilla wood glue and used my Ryobi Airstrike Nail gun to make a box from these pieces. I used 3 nails on each corner like this.

Airstrike Nail gun — Your finished box should look a bit like this…

Box for Frame Shelf — You can see how it measures the same as the opening of the frame…

Frame for Shadowbox Shelf — Next, I used a line of wood glue around the edge of the frame like this…

Gorilla Wood Glue — I laid my frame on top of my box and used 1 1/4″ brad nails through the frame and into the box to hold it together.

Nail Frame to Box — The finished boxes looked a bit like this…

My final step was painting them. Before I did that, I used a bit of wood filler to fill all of my nail holes.

3M Wood Filler — I painted all of the boxes and frames with my very favorite spray paint color. I used Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch in Heirloom White. You can get this at Home Depot.

Once they dried I was ready to hang them up! I used command strips for this part. These things are the BOMB. They make life so easy. I decided to use 3 hangers on each frame.

3M Command Strips Picture Hangers — I just attached the strips in pairs, attached them to each box, and pulled the back piece off before attaching the frames to the wall.

I filled each of her boxes with stuff she uses for art and reading. I found the really cute ampersand HERE at Birch Lane! The awesome task lamp is also a Birch Lane find! You can see it HERE! It’s one of our fav new stores for accessories… Such cute stuff!

Here is how they turned out!