Braided Clay Picture Frames

You know how much I love bright colors and white backgrounds right? Well I’m thrilled to be partnering with Portrait Innovations to bring you this fun tutorial. As always all thoughts and opinions are my own.


So Oliver is 17 months old now, and we had never had any pictures taken before as a family. I know, so bad! Sometimes the whole thought of going and getting your picture taken is overwhelming… especially when you know it will involve attempting to get three kids to look at the camera at the same time, and maybe even smile. Honestly, it felt impossible to get any good pictures.

But a couple of weeks ago, we did the impossible! We went to Portrait Innovations and got pictures taken. And the kids were a little crazy. Lyla made silly faces. Oliver would not sit still. And even I got so distracted with the kids that sometimes I forgot to look and smile. And yet the photographer still was able to capture some great pictures! They were especially great with Oliver and had so many great tricks for making him feel comfortable, sit still for a few seconds at least, and even smile.

We took some pictures against a beachy backdrop that turned out really beautifully. Of course I especially love the white background pictures. Everyone wore solid colored shirts and jeans or khakis. I tried to pick out some bright colors that would go together well without clashing, and I really  love how the colors look together. And how awesome is this picture. It’s almost an outtake because Oliver is jumping and he has a fistful of Lyla’s hair, but I honestly love this picture so much because it really does capture what life is like for us these days.

I knew I wanted to make some colorful picture frames for each individual portrait of the kids in the same color that they were wearing. I made these with polymer clay, which is one of my favorite mediums. It’s really easy to work with.

What you need:


1. Polymer Clay
2. Clay knife
3. Baking sheet/oven
4. Glue

What you do:


1. It’s important to have a very clean work space when working with polymer clay. It will pick up any little pieces of dust or cat hair or anything like that when you use it.

2. Start by rolling out three strands of clay all about the same thickness. I tried to get them all about the same size as a colored pencil.

3. Pinch the tops of the three strands together and then braid. Hold the clay delicately to avoid weird bumps and fingerprints.

4. Start braiding. you may have to hold the clay close to the braid and play around with it to get an even looking braid.
5. Create a template to use by tracing the photo you want to frame onto a blank piece of paper.
6. Lay the braided clay on top of the template so that the center of the braid lines up with the lines of the template. Cut the clay at a corner angle on the top and bottom.

7. Keep braiding and cutting until your frame is complete. Pinch and smooth the corners a little bit to secure them without changing the shape too much.

8. Move the clay to your baking sheet and bake according to the instructions on the package. (Note: different brands of clay have different baking instructions. I used Sculpey clay and baked the frames for 20 minutes at 275 degrees.)

9. After the clay has cooled, flip the frames over and add a little bit of glue (hot glue gun works well) in between the corners to make sure they are secure. I also added hot glue to the corners of each of my pictures and attached them to the back of the frames. I don’t plan on switching the pictures out. You could also attach a thin cardboard backing for extra security.

10. I think these frames would make the cutest magnets. I attached them to the wall with Command strips, but you could also add ribbon or twine to the backs.

We ended out ordering a lot of different print sizes, but I used the 3×5 sized ones for these frames. I ended out using 3 ounces of clay for each frame (one and a half little packages). These are a great size, but I think that using wallet sized pictures to make little fridge magnets would be super cute.