Making a Curtain Frame for Your Picture

An old publication that Scrapbooks Plus was giving away showed a card with a curtain. It seemed that this would make the perfect frame for a picture of my aunt as a homecoming attendant. Here’s how you make a curtain frame. Cut three strips of paper – two equal ones for the sides of your curtain and a shorter one for the valance (top). The size of each will depend on the size of your pictures. Punch a scallop design on the bottom of all three pieces. To make the folds, score the pieces that will be the side of your curtain every 1/4th of an inch. (You can score however you like but I like to use a scoring blade on my Cutterpede trimer. It is easy to keep all your lines straight and you have all the measurements you need.) You do need to score each line on the opposite side of the paper of the previous one because you are going to pleat the paper. Then you simply pleat the paper along the scored lines. This part can be a bit tedious. I made my pleats 1/8” and admit I screamed several times. If you make the pleats ¼” rather than 1/8” it is a lot easier. Apply Glossy Accents to the top of each side when you finish making the pleats to hold the pleats in place at the top. Once both sides are complete, glue the top of the curtain to the sides and fold the side edges of the top down to make a drape valance just like you’d have on your window at home. Gluing a plain paper frame inside the curtain makes it easier to affix to your scrapbook page. The final touch is to tie the sides back with small pieces of ribbons. Your curtain is now ready to glue to the page.

Everything else on this page was super simple. As you can see, I placed a strip of the green side of the Time of My Life to the background made of Sunday Afternoon. Another piece of Time of My Life was used to frame the main picture. By using pieces with the brown dots around the outside as spacers, I was able to quickly add self-adhesive Pebbles Pearl Candy Dots Brown all around the picture, creating emphasis on the main picture. I made a base and a journaling block using Tim Holtz Sizzix ATC & Corners Die. The Ladies & Gents stickers were used for the lettering, with a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink to tone down the turquoise a bit. Other accents include ribbon from the Ladies & Gents line, a crown and some books cut out of the Sunday Afternoon paper, a Tim Holtz hangar and some tags for lettering.

Not only do I have a special page for our family, but my aunt enjoyed the trip down memory lane that it provided her.