Lighted Picture Frame Centerpieces

My oldest daughter got married a few months ago and this is what we made for her centerpieces . . .

In our search to find the perfect centerpiece, we had a few parameters we had to meet:

– The tables were round so we didn’t want anything too big or tall – we wanted guests to be able to see everyone sitting at the table with them.

– We wanted something that would give off a little light, to add some warmth to the late October day.

– We wanted something flowery yet personal.

– We wanted something that we could do ourselves!!!

While searching for ideas on Pinterest {how did one plan a wedding before Pinterest? lol} we found the idea for our perfect centerpieces by Martha Stewart – just needed some tweaking to make it our own. Sorry, the link doesn’t work anymore, but the picture is still on my Pinterest Wedding board.

So how did we make them? Get wooden picture frames in multiples of three (Ikea, Dollar stores) in your choice of size and paint them. I painted three frames each a different colour so we could determine which we liked best. We ended up using a chocolate brown paint and the helpful groom did all the painting. Lightly sanding the edges finished it nicely.

The pictures are simply printed off the computer onto vellum paper (it’s translucent and we wanted the candle to glow through). Just have the glass and vellum in your frame, no backing cardboard – unless you aren’t using a candle.

To assemble them, we simply taped them together with a piece of duct tape. Use a colour of tape that won’t show through any cracks that might be there – we used black. We transported them flat and did the final assembly while setting up. We lay the third piece of tape half over one edge and then stood the frames up and pressed from the top and bottom to adhere it to the other frame.

Now – very important – we used battery operated tea light candles – no real flame (but I know you’re all smart enough to know that already). We used flowers to cover the tops of our frames, which is why we didn’t need to paint the inside of the frames. Martha may have done it differently, but this worked for us! I cut triangles of cardboard (out of cereal boxes) in the right size to nicely sit on top of the frames. I glued leaves to all the edges of the cardboard first so no Rice Krispie pictures would show through the flowers! To attach the flowers, I actually poked the two biggest ones through the cardboard and glued them in place. They provided an anchor for me to hot glue all the other flowers up against.

We set our tealight on a block of wood to make it a little higher inside the frames. We chose to make wood bases because we already had the wood. We just needed to cut it and router the edges and then paint, sand and distress the edges.

The bride painting bases, while watching a movie. Not sure why she has a jug of milk there! The family room was a mess of projects for a long time and that plastic was always nearby for painting jobs!

The little doily was the finishing touch! We also tried tying jute around the bottom, about a third of the way up, and it looked cute, but for the wedding, we liked it better without it.

On the head table we used 5×7 frames, and all the rest were 4×6. We used different photo combinations in each as well so no two centerpieces were the same.

The same picture – lit and unlit.Before the first reception – the centerpieces aren’t even glowing yet and we still have some florescent lights on. When all the lights were on the way we planned, the centerpieces looked lovely glowing on every table.The second reception – and again, the centerpieces aren’t glowing yet. But it was so pretty!!!