Acrylic Floating Frames

Dec 3

Our DIY Acrylic Floating Frames are finished and hanging in our bedroom 🙌🏼 I am so happy with how these turned out and even happier that they are done. This project was a little bit of a doozy and there were A LOT of failures along the way, but I get to see sweet pictures of my babies every morning and night so it was all worth it. Here are the basics you will need for this project. Remember if you don’t have some of these tools, you can always borrow or rent.

Other things you will need are

Tape Measure or Ruler
Permanent Marker
Dry Erase Marker
Double Sided Tape
Scissors
Pictures

Step 1: Head to your local Lowe’s and buy your acrylic. You could also go to Home Depot, but depending on the size you need, Lowe’s will cut it for you and HD will not. I chose this acrylic sheet for our project. We did 16x20 frames and could get 3 pieces out of one sheet.

I initially planned to do two pieces per frame, but when we got them home we quickly realized the guy at Lowe’s didn’t cut them as exact as we needed him to. I decided to do single pieces instead and it actually worked out, because several pieces cracked in the process of drilling holes.

Step 2: Drill holes for wall mounts. I left the plastic cover on the front of the acrylic while I drilled and used a permanent market to mark where each hole would go. I chose to measure 1 1/4” in on all four corners. This part was a lot of trial and error for me, but here is what I learned.

Use a woodboring drill bit! If you buy the stand out mounts in this blog post, you will need a 1/2” woodboring drill bit. I found that a larger twist drill bit broke the acrylic every time. The woodboring bits allow the drill to slowly create the holes and, although there was some cracking, I had more success with these.
Drill slowly and avoid too much pressure. The acrylic is not a heavy duty material and I found that if I tried to drill the holes too quickly or put too much pressure while drilling, the acrylic would crack.
Get extras, because you will need them. Just expect the acrylic to crack and be prepared with back up pieces. I got a little frustrated with every failure, but if you know it’s coming it may make it a little easier!

Step 3: Install standout mounts. This part felt a little tricky, because they have to hang pretty exact. We measured the center point on the wall and started with the bottom left frame first. We put the mounts on each frame and held the frame again the wall, used a level to get it right and then used a pencil to mark around each wall mount. The screws are drilled inside each mount, so once we knew where each mount was going, we took them off the frames and screwed them in.

Keep in mind the acrylic may not be cut precisely, so hang each piece as you go and level accordingly!

Step 4: Adhere pictures. This is the exciting step! We chose to do 8x10’s in our 16x20 frames, because I wanted a lot of blank space. To mount the pictures, I measured 5” up and 4” in, then took a dry erase marker and made lines to mark where two corners would go. Next, flip the acrylic over so no marker gets on your image. I used four small pieces of double sided tape in each corner of the photo to attach.

Be sure to hang each acrylic piece back on the mounts exactly how you took it off. These won’t be perfect and flipping them when rehanging could make them look off. Remember to hang them how you originally leveled them!

Step 5: Rehang and wipe clean. You did it! Even if it was slightly frustrating, they are finished and I hope they bring you a sense of pride and a smile every time you see them!