Hand-made picture frame

16/10/11

Recently I was asked to thin out a the big oak tree in my back garden at home, as it blocks a lot of sunlight in the afternoon, leaving our garden enveloped in darkness. Excited to be asked to climb a tree, and armed with a bow-saw, I set about chopping branches off all over.

After all the necessary branches were cut off, and all tidied up, I had saved a number of decent sized logs for some very amateur D.I.Y projects - I've got no training, or real experience in woodworking, just lots of ideas and enthusiasm, which has always worked out for me in a number of situations!

Anyway, long story short... I made a picture frame, using only hand tools (as that's all I had available to use). The grid above documents the steps I went through to make it, going from left to right.

I wanted the rustic, handmade aesthetic as it's going to hang somewhere I'll be seeing it, and love anything that's got a real natural look and feel to it. And, like an oil painting has all the brushmarks, and lumps of paint sticking out, this has evident signs of how it was made - dents, chips, scratches on the wood where it's been knocked around and cut by my clueless approach to woodwork.

It's not to everyone's taste, this rustic, handmade look, but I'm impressed that I managed to get it done, and am actually quite proud of it...so have already started making another one!