shadowox frame filled with school portraits displayed on desk

Crafts

Shadowbox Frame DIY for Annual School Portraits

Let’s talk about school portraits. Relatively speaking they are horrible… yet I STILL LOVE THEM!

I adore seeing portraits of first-graders and little ones awkwardly posed in front of one of those cheesy school backdrops with unkempt hair and usually missing front teeth. So what do you do with those school photos once you’ve ordered them diligently every year? I guess you can hang them framed, down the hallway in a giant gallery, and also distribute them to relatives. We decided to display them in a shadowbox, cool time-lapse style!

I think this would be a great gift idea for grandparents for the holidays or any day….

Supplies needed to make this School Portrait Shadowbox Display

a shadowbox frame (we used these 11×14 frames but I think even bigger would have been nice, bonus if you can get the kind with an opening door (we found one by Umbra that comes with a clip line, too)
twine
school photos (we resized our photos too 2×2.5 to fit the 11×14 so definitely go bigger on the frame if you are using traditional 2.5×3.5 wallet-size photos)
tiny clothespins (we used these)
tape
scissors
white glue (optional)
tiny labels (see our printable below) (optional)

Let’s get started.

How to make this School Portrait Shadowbox Frame

First, disassemble your shadowbox frame and layout your photos on the background. If your student hasn’t completed all her grades yet, use some white paper as place-holders for the remaining grades. Once you have them so they will all fit, lay down four pieces of twine with enough overlapping the edge to wrap around and affix to the back with tape. It’s a good idea to use tape on the front to hold down the twine until you get everything situated so it doesn’t move. Then once you’ve flipped it over and taped down the twine on the back you can turn it back over and remove the for-placement-only tape pieces on the front. Our frame came with a linen background to which it was easy to adhere and remove tape, but if you are working with a paper background you might want to use painters tape that removes easily.

This step is optional. If you would like to put labels on the tiny clothespins that will hold the school photos you can print out our handy label sheet here or make your own. Attach the tiny labels to the clothespins with a dab of white glue. Allow to dry and then put your cover on your shadow box and you are done!