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An intricate handmade gift was a sign of love and care for the Victorians. This padded picture frame can be personalised with your own designs, as well as the image you choose to place in it.

• Topic: Gifts
• Difficulty: Medium
• Time: 2 hours

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If you do not have a wooden frame, you can make one easily by nailing together four pieces of wood to make a basic frame. This does not have to be neat, as it will be covered later.

Step 1: Mark and cut out the fabric cover

Cut the fabric to size

Place the wooden frame onto the fabric. Draw roughly around the frame, and around this draw another box about the same width as the frame. Use the for marking out the fabric.

Create the triangular flaps

Cut around the fabric following the outside box line. For the inside box, draw two diagonal lines from corner to corner. Starting in the centre, cut along these diagonal lines, stopping just before you reach the edge of the inner box (See Fig. 1 in the template). This creates four triangular flaps which will help you to wrap the fabric tightly around the frame.

Step 2: Pad out the frame with cotton wool

Glue cotton wool to the frame

Glue the cotton wool onto the frame. If you've made your frame some parts may need more padding to make it even.

Step 3: Glue the fabric around the padded frame

Glue the fabric onto the frame

Take the piece of fabric and place the frame onto it, with the cotton wool side face down. Take one side of the fabric and pull tightly over the frame, then glue down. Pull the triangular flap and glue over the top. Repeat on all sides of the frame. Don't worry if it looks a bit messy, this will be covered up later on.

Step 4: Decorate the front of the frame

Decorate the frame

We decorated our frame by sewing a piece of ribbon around it, but you can use anything you like. Buttons or lace work well, or you can use fabric paints.

Step 5: Paste the picture onto card and glue to the frame

Glue picture to the back of the frame

Take a piece of cardboard, cut to the size of the frame.

Paste your image, illustration, drawing or photograph onto the card, making sure that it is centred and can be seen through the frame. You can stick it on with blu-tack to make sure it is positioned correctly before you finally glue it.