Calendar to Wall Art - Circle Frames

Got an old calendar lying around with gorgeous artwork that you can't bear to throw away? Thin cardboard calendars won't last forever, but you can turn it into upcycled wall art for just a few bucks.

Sure you could buy some ready-made frames, but then those are boring old rectangles and you'd be stuck with 12 bulky frames when the calendar art fades in a year or two.

This'll be a quick instructable on how to make a bunch of circular frames. These are easy, minimise waste, and would look pretty fun on any wall. They could be made of acrylic, matt-board or cardboard. Just whatever you have on hand!

Concentric Circles Make Use of the Whole Sheet

I only had two A3 sheets of black acrylic lying around, and I wanted to maximise the number of frames I could cut.

I just drew a bunch of concentric circles as follows:

Largest frame: 26cm outer diameter, 23cm inner diameter
each frame was progressively smaller, at 23, 20, 17, 14, 11cm outer diameter. This gave a 1.5cm thick black frame for each ring.

So my digital bent means that I drew these in a vector program and laser cut these rings out on my 4W Embosser. But you could easily draw these with a compass and cut them out of acrylic or plywood with a band saw, scroll saw, etc. Or even just use some foam core board or thick mounting board and an exacto blade.

Cut Out the Calendar Picture, and Stick On

You'll have a bunch of different sized circle frames. See which images look best in which frame, then trace the outside of the frame onto the image and cut it out.

Stick the frame onto the cut-out picture with double sided tape all round the edge.

Mount It on the Wall

Mount it on the wall with removable 3M command-type velcro stickers for paintings. These were really lightweight, so I just used half a velcro tab per circle.

Cut the velcro tab in half, and stick one half on the back of the painting. The other half with the 'pull-to-release' tab should go on the wall so that you can easily remove it from the wall when you're tired of this arrangement.

Just bunch them on the wall in whatever arrangement you like. I had to split up SYD-NEY into two circles to fit.

Enjoy!