Cancer Ribbon Picture Frames
Lisa’s mom and cousin-in-law, Wesley, were both diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of years ago. Both went through similar treatments and have made full recoveries (thank goodness). Lisa really wanted to make a small cross stitch project for both of them, so she made up a breast cancer ribbon with a different saying on both of them. I wanted to contribute as well, so I made the frames for both projects.
Sometimes Simpler is Better
I couldn’t get started on the frames until Lisa was done with both projects. I needed to get the precise measurements of the finished “pictures” to make sure I sized the frames correctly. Both projects were basically identical, so I only really needed the measurements for one of them.
The frames themselves are nothing extremely complicated. The corners are mitered and I cut slots for splines to be glued in place to give added strength to the joints. End grain joints that are simply held together with only wood glue and no fasteners are inherently weak joints over time. The end grain always tries to suck up the glue, or any liquid for that matter, during assembly thus not leaving much to hold it together. Adding the splines will give a much stronger face joint with glue to add the strength needed.
Prior to assembling the frame, I took the time to run the rabbets to make the slot for the acrylic and hardboard backer panel. I set up my table saw to make the rabbet in two passes instead of using a router bit. I also ran a small roundover on the inside edges of the frames to give them a softer look. It was going to be much easier to run the groove and roundover on each piece before gluing it together. If I had waited until after it was glued up, and I ran the groove with a rabbeting bit on the router table, I would have had rounded corners to deal with for the acrylic and hardboard panels. This just made that whole process easier.
Before I could cut the splines, I had to make a jig to allow me to make the needed cuts. I found a simple spline-cutting jig on YouTube and put that together rather crudely. It’s not the prettiest thing, but it gets the job done. After double-checking the depth of the cuts on the frame, I ran both frames through the table saw with the aid of the spline-cutting jig. Once all four corners were cut, I could then work on getting the material for the splines prepped.
I had a small piece of red oak from a previous shop project laying around, so I figured I would just use that. Both frames were going to painted, so the splines weren’t going to be the main focus anyway. I resawed the piece of red oak in half and then planed it down to the correct thickness, which was about 1/8” (the thickness of the saw blade kerf). Once I verified the fit, the band saw made quick work of cutting the splines to rough shape. The splines were glued in place and allowed to dry. Once dried, I used a flush trim saw to cut the excess off of the splines.
This was my first time using a flush trim saw, so it was a bit of a struggle for me. I was trying really hard not to mar the side of the frames (Note to future self, put some blue tape down on the piece first to prevent the saw from making unnecessary marks on the wood). Eventually I just trimmed off most of the excess fairly close and used the random-orbit sander to flush everything up. I wasn’t careful with the sander, though, and I wound up rounding the sides of the frames a little bit. Another lesson learned for future picture frame projects.
The Big Payoff
After sanding the rest of the frames to 180 grit, these were basically done. Like a lot of projects, the finishing touches were put off for a couple of months. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks before we were going to make the trip back to Maryland for Christmas that the frames were completely finished.
I chose to use acrylic to cover the cross stitch instead of glass. I’m not a fan of glass in picture frames, especially in this case with Wesley’s two young boys running around the house. I didn’t want them to accidentally knock the frame over and have the glass break. Not to mention, the acrylic I found was much thinner and lighter than a pane of glass, plus I could cut it to the proper size myself.
For the backer panel, I had a large piece of hardboard still hanging around from my old workbench build from the rental house. It was a little rough-looking in some spots, but it wasn’t really going to be seen, plus I could sand it down a bit if I needed to anyway. With the acrylic and hardboard cut to proper size, Lisa cut the fabric to size to match the opening. Lisa went ahead and painted both frames pink, adding some glitter to the frame for Wesley as that’s kind of her style.
Everything was put in place and we finally got a chance to see what the final product would look like. It was just awesome. I still needed to figure out how I was going to hold the backer panel in place. I opted for a point driver by Logan to get the job done. It’s a really simple way of safely securing everything in place with little chance of damaging the frame.
These were to be Christmas gifts, so we had to wait a little bit longer for anyone else to see them. Lisa’s mom already knew about the picture and frame for Wesley as Lisa had bounced fabric color ideas of her, but was in total shock when she got one too. Both frames were very well liked, and a few tears were shed by the recipients, as was to be expected. Overall, the project was a total win. I learned a couple of things for the future with making frames, and I got the opportunity to make a nice gift for family. What more could anyone ask for?
