Turn Cheap Frames Into Stunning Crystal Chandeliers! | Dollar Tree DIY | Glam Home Decor

Hello Creative Gems, welcome back to Creativity, and if you're new here, I'm Sandy. Today we're going to have some fun transforming these two basic silver framed picture frames from the Dollar Tree into a stunning crystal chandelier you can hang from the ceiling. For the chandelier we're making today, you can use any size frames as long as they have plain, flat, boxy frames like these ones. No curves or any fancy molding needed, and you'll see why as we begin to make the chandelier. The first thing I'm doing is disassembling both frames by removing the cardboard backing, any default pictures, and mat inside, as well as the glass. We won't need any of those items, so maybe set them aside and save them for a future craft project. For this chandelier, we'll only need the two frames themselves. Next I'm going to use a ruler to measure the width and length of the shorter side of the frame. This one is 1.5 cm in width. Next we'll measure the length, and this looks to be about 21.5 cm in length. Then I'll need to figure out the midpoint and cut 1.5 cm out from the middle. And for that, I used ChatGPT to tell me where to start my cut and where to end my cut. So here I used a pencil to mark where I need to make my cuts, and I can see I need to make a correction because it looks like I placed the marks for a 1 cm cut, but I actually need a 1.5 cm cut. So I'll go ahead and make that correction before I actually start cutting. So originally I attempted to use a box cutter to cut the frame, but I quickly realized the box cutter was not going to cut it. No pun intended. So I grabbed my handsaw, and this one has jagged teeth, so it will cut the wooden frame much better than the box cutter. And while I work on this, I would like to take a moment to thank you for tuning in to today's craft project. If you enjoy glam home decor and DIY crafts on a budget, please let me know by hitting that subscribe button. And if you like what you see today, please give me a thumbs up as well so YouTube will continue to recommend my channel to other viewers like you. I finally have the first cut done, and it actually didn't take much time nor effort to get it cut. Now I'll just repeat the same cut 1.5 cm away from the first cut. I have this little piece now cut out, which I will need to save for later. Here I've turned the frame over so we can trim off the edges and make sure we have the cleanest cut possible. And for this little trim, a box cutter will do just fine. Next I'll use some pliers to remove the little metal tabs from the back of each frame. If you don't have any pliers, you could just use your fingers to pull them out, but just be careful to not hurt yourself. Your other option is to wear some gloves while you pull them with your fingers. Okay, so now we're ready to assemble our frames. I'm going to take the frame we didn't cut and slip it through the gap of the second frame that we just cut so that the two frames are positioned into a criss-cross formation. So when you're looking from up above, you'll see the letter X. And to keep them in the criss-cross shape, I'll apply some hot glue at the top where the two picture frames intersect. The hot glue will cool and dry fairly quickly, at which point you can let go of the frames and they should stand up on their own. Then I'm going to take that little piece that we cut out earlier, apply some wood glue to the sides, and stick it back into the gap of the frame we just cut. See how they're joined up together now? It's a little messy looking and it's a little scratched up, but don't worry about that because we'll be covering it up with some embellishments anyhow. For now though, we'll want to wait about 20 minutes for the wood glue to fully cure. Okay, so it's been about 20 minutes or so and all the glue has fully cured. The structure of the two frames is pretty sturdy. We've got the bottom here and we've got the top here. What I want to do with the sides of the frame is embellish them. To do that, we have pretty much limitless options, but I have narrowed it down to three embellishment options. First we have these mini mirror tiles. They come in panels like this but can be cut to size and they're conveniently self-adhesive. Next we have this silver chrome card trim. This card trim has a mirror-like finish and can also be cut to size. It's also self-adhesive. Finally, we have this silvery washi tape. It's the right size for this frame and because it's tape, we can cut it to size and it's self-adhesive so no glue required. So which one do you think I should choose? Any guesses which one I'll choose? Let me know down in the comments section. So in the end, I chose this chrome card trim. The reason is the mini mirror tiles, although beautiful, would be a bit heavier and weigh down the frames. The washi tape would also be a beautiful option but it has a matte finish so not really as reflective as this chrome card trim. And if you are familiar with me and my home decor crafts, you already know how much I love shiny stuff. So card trim it is. And I'm going to start by cutting mitered edges at about 45 degrees and then adhere the card trim first to the backsides of each frame. And while I work on this, comment down below with the words picture frame and let me know if any of you have ever crafted with picture frames before. For me, I have crafted with picture frames to make everything from candle holders, vanity trays, keepsake boxes, lanterns, and chandeliers. I find picture frames are very versatile and not just for pictures. Because picture frames come in all sorts of sizes, colors, finishes, and designs, you can really let your imagination run wild and be as creative as you want. I would be very curious to know what you may have made with picture frames so please let me know down in the comments and maybe your ideas can spark others watching on this channel to get crafting as well. With the backsides of each frame done, I decided to go ahead and add the card trim to the outside of the frames as well. And to ensure that we secure the card trim around the corner edges of the frame, I decided to add a bit of hot glue as well for extra reinforcement to ensure that the trim doesn't pop up later on. And as I apply the card trim to all sides of each frame, I can begin to see how much nicer the frame already looks. The card trim with its mirror-like finish really gives this frame an upscaled look. And by the way, I know some of you are going to ask again, so I'll just remind everyone that if you're interested in stocking up on any of the embellishments, tools, or supplies you see in any of my craft videos, I always leave links in the description box for all my craft videos. So feel free to check the description box anytime. And of course, if there's something you can't find, leave me a question in the comments section as well. But just know that the links to all my favorite trims, ribbons, gems, and other embellishments are always provided in the description box because I know many of you are also crafters and DIYers. And with that done, this is what the frames look like now with the card trim applied to all sides of both frames. I really like the look of it, but I also think that there's more I could do with it, so I may actually add more embellishments to it later. But for now, it's already looking pretty good. I'm going to set this aside for the time being because we need to work on building out the second part of this chandelier. Here I have a tall cylindrical plastic vase from the Dollar Tree. You can see I already started to decorate it with some silver metallic foil in a mesh pattern. These are actually pieces I cut up from disposable placemats I found online. They sell them in packs of 50, so you can get a whole bunch that will last you for a very, very long time. I think each placemat works out to be about $0.30 per placemat, so it's a pretty good bang for your buck, especially if you like to craft with them. And they're very easy to cut up into pieces, just like I've done here. And the metallic foil comes in gold as well as other colors for you to choose from. To adhere them onto the vase, I'm simply applying some Mod Podge onto the vase first, and then I'll place pieces of the foil onto it until the entire vase is covered. One thing to note is that you should make sure you apply enough Mod Podge so that the foil pieces will stick along the curves of the cylindrical vase. If any of the Mod Podge has already dried up, you can always go back in with a second coat. In fact, you can also apply a final coat of Mod Podge directly on top of the foil to set everything in place. The Mod Podge will actually dry clear, so you won't need to worry about the silver foil getting covered up. And also, don't worry if you have any excess foil pieces hanging off the edges of the vase, because it's going to be easy enough to trim them off with a pair of scissors later once the Mod Podge has dried. Here I'm just filling in some empty spaces with smaller pieces of the cut out foil, and I'll continue to do that until the entire vase is sufficiently covered. Then I'll wait about an hour or so until the entire vase has fully dried. And when we're done, this is what the vase looks like now. There's enough areas of the vase where there's no foil so we can allow some light to shine through, because we'll be placing a puck light inside later. But before we do that, we need to figure out how we're going to insert this vase inside the center of the picture frame we assembled earlier. So what I'm going to do first is cut a small piece of wood to place onto the bottom of the frame where I made the cut. That will help even things out and create a nice, perfectly flat surface to place over our vase on top. So, it turns out I only needed two small pieces of the wood to keep things flat, so I hot glued them into place already. Now I've got a piece of magnet that I grabbed from the dollar store, and we're going to stick it onto the base of the chandelier right in the center like so. And for the puck light I'm going to use, it already comes with its own magnet, so I'll remove the wax backing from that, and then place it inside the vase. It will sit on the base of the vase inside. I'll place it in the center as much as possible. I'll also place a second magnet to the bottom of the vase on the outside, and then I'll stick the vase right on top of the dollar store magnet like so. And here you can see at the bottom, I ended up adding a couple of small foam balls to help balance the vase to help refrain it from tipping over on either side. Now with the magnet in place, as well as the foam balls, this vase is very, very sturdy. Now for the really fun part. I have these hanging crystal garlands that we're going to hang onto the chandelier. I'm going to use these beautiful S hooks that I found at the Dollar Tree in the Christmas aisle during the holiday season. See how pretty these garlands are? Each crystal piece is separated by a jump ring, so you can actually make your garland pieces as short or as long as you prefer. And one little tip is if you want your hanging chandeliers to be as lightweight as possible, go for the acrylic garlands instead of the real glass ones. These ones I'm using are actually acrylic, and I think they're almost as pretty as the real glass ones, but at a fraction of the price, of course. Towards the end of each garland, I'm also going to add one of these beads. I have some that are shaped like a leaf, and I have other ones that are in a teardrop shape. And each bead already comes with a hole at the top, so you can loop the S hook through it very easily. So what I'm going to do is alternate the leaf-shaped beads and the teardrop-shaped beads, since I don't have enough of the leaf-shaped ones. And by the way, the garlands I'm using are available online, and you'll find a link to it in my curated list of favorite embellishments down in the description box. As for the beads, they're actually from Hobby Lobby, and at the time I bought them, I think I had a coupon, so they were about half off. So anyhow, I'm going to assemble a bunch of these garlands first, and then we'll hang them onto the chandelier. The number of garlands is really based on your own personal preference. If you want more bling, go ahead and hang more. Or if you want to keep your chandelier lightweight, just hang less. Now before we hang the garlands, I forgot that I want to install a finial to the top of the chandelier as well. So I'm going to go back in and cut a small portion of the card trim off the top of the frame. In retrospect, I really should have thought of that earlier and not applied the piece of card trim all the way across the frame, but what happens sometimes is I'm designing things on the fly, and then I have to go back and make corrections to accommodate the design. And that is exactly what happened here. Luckily though, it's not a big deal as this card trim is easy to snip off, I just need to clean off some of the adhesive that is left behind. And now we're at the home stretch. I'm going to start hanging the garlands onto the chandelier, and then the final thing we'll do is add the finial to the top. It's like when you build a cupcake. You leave it till the end, and then put the cherry on top, right? So to hang the garlands, I actually have a couple of options that I'll show you. Here you can see I'm just hanging them right off the vase itself. I'm placing four in each of the four quadrants for a total of 16. But like I mentioned earlier, you can choose to hang more or less based on your own personal preference. Now for the finial. It's going to be a custom made one. Here I have a silver Christmas ornament ball, and the first thing I'll do is remove the silver cap from it, and then I'll apply some hot glue all around the tip of the ornament ball. Then I'll go back in and put the cap back on and wait for the hot glue to fully cool and dry. And while we wait for the hot glue to completely cool, I went ahead and rearranged my garlands. And here you can see I took the garland pieces and hung them from the frame instead. And then now I'm going to go back in and wrap the cap with a piece of rhinestone trim just to give it a bit of bling. This trim is self-adhesive and will also add a bit of additional security so the cap does not come off. This is especially important if you plan to hang the chandelier directly from the finial itself. Now, to secure the ornament ball to the top of the frame, I'm going to apply some Fix-All first, and then some hot glue. The Fix-All will provide a very, very strong and long-lasting hold, while the hot glue will cool and dry in only a few seconds. And here's the final look for our picture frame crystal hanging chandelier. I took the chain from a hanging basket I found at the Dollar Tree and looped that around the top of the picture frames in order to hang the chandelier from the ceiling. The alternative, as I mentioned earlier, is to hang the chandelier directly from the finial itself. You'll also notice that I decided to go back and add some rhinestone trim on either side of the silver chrome card trim, just to add a bit more bling to the chandelier. And so, for this first chandelier design, I have the crystal garlands hanging from the frames. The puck light sitting inside the vase is actually motion censored, so it will power on automatically when motion is detected, which means this chandelier is completely electricity and wire-free. And here's the second chandelier design, whereby I have the crystal garlands hanging off the vase itself. And I'm also controlling the puck light, changing the brightness and temperature color of the light with the remote it comes with. And when the puck light needs to be recharged, I can simply remove it from the vase and use a USB cable to charge it, since this puck light doesn't even require any batteries, like the ones you would normally get at the dollar store. And finally, we have a third chandelier design, where I have actually removed the garlands. The chandelier is modern and very lightweight, and because of the way I designed it, it's very versatile and the look can be easily changed. Comment down below with the words Picture Frame and let me know which of the three designs you prefer. And if you enjoyed today's craft tutorial, please like and subscribe to my channel and share with other creative gems. Also remember to hit the notification bell so you can be notified every time I have another DIY glam project on my channel.