Remember the days of trying to hide our monstrous TV in a huge armoires! Well, are you familiar with the Frame TV? The unique thing about the Frame TV is that it totally doubles as a piece of art, and trust me, no one wants to hide this lovely TV, (did I just say that about a TV?!) The TV comes loaded with a few pieces of art that you may choose to display. If you want a greater selection, you can buy the art ‘subscription’ and get several more art options. I like free though, so I figured out how to upload beautiful classic art onto my Frame TV and it was 100% free!! There are a few tricks though, so I’m explaining how I figured out how to DIY free artwork for the Frame TV.
My daughter and son in law introduced me to the Frame TV and I’ve got to say it’s pretty awesome! After seeing theirs, we bought one for our own Christmas present last year.
The way the Frame TV accomplishes this double duty, TV watching and art, is first, it is very thin and sits totally flat against wall. Secondly, it has the ability to be framed with a real frame, giving it dimension just like a real painting, (more on that below). Finally, the Frame TV has software installed to display art, (which we’ll dig into a little further down in this post) on the screen when you’re not watching TV.
So first, the frame part of the TV. When you buy the Frame TV, (we bought our Frame TV HERE) it comes with a skinny frame, or ‘bezel’. This is a very skinny black frame that does finish the edge of the TV, and you could totally leave it like that for a modern style and call it good.
OR… (and this is the fun part!)
Adding a Frame to the Frame TV
You can order a real frame and put it on the TV. I’d recommend getting a frame that is specially designed for the Frame TV. For our TV, I ordered a traditional style gilded frame, but there are modern styles as well.
With only the bezel compared to the TV with the additional gilded frame, shows the impact an additional frame can have. I didn’t have to measure a thing. They know the Frame TVs and all the sizes the TVs are available in. I ordered the size frame that is designed for my size Frame TV.
The frames are pretty slick how they go together and hang onto The Frame TV. There are magnetic attachments for the corners that hold the wood frame pieces into the rectangle shape. The frame came in 4 pieces and was super easy to snap into place with magnets holding the precisely cut corners.
Once the frame was put together, (which literally took me less than 5 minutes, and most of that was just opening the box!) I followed the simple directions and hung it on my Frame TV. The top of the frame clips over the top of the bezel on the TV and then the bottom of the frame is held with 2 little spring loaded holders attached to the bottom piece.
I should tell you that we did have Best Buy Geek Squad install the TV for us. There were a few extra steps and precautions mounting this style TV, so I just thought it was worth it to have them do it for me. So glad we did go that route. It was fairly involved plus they got the surround sound system and everything hooked up for us. You totally can do the installation yourself if you want, the Frame TV provides detailed directions, (reading them online is what convinced me to hire the Geek Squad to do it).
Now to the DIY Free Art for the Frame TV Part
Now before I go any further… If you happen to be a computer geek, you can probably quit reading this post right about now! I am not a computer anything… You may in fact be muttering under your breath, that I have no business writing tips on computer techy stuff… and you may be right! (For you, HERE are some non-techy DIY tips I’ve written that you can visit.)
Here’s the thing… I’m a grandma that likes to do stuff myself. I enjoy figuring out how to DIY and refuse to be intimidated by computer technology. It may take me (a LOT!) longer than a computer whiz, but I’ll get there eventually. If I can help someone else that’s not super knowledgeable about computer technology or uploading pictures, then I’ve accomplished my goal with this post!
I definitely don’t claim to be an expert at anything… I love to learn and DIY and have fun in the process.
My workaround to get my own FREE artwork on my Frame TV
That’s another thing I am loving about our Frame TV, I can change the art for the season, the holiday or even just for the day. I could subscribe to the ‘art’ offered by The Frame TV, but it’s fairly expensive. I found some sites that offer it for sale, some are as low as $5 each digital picture… But, I started to think if they can do, why can’t I?? So, I have found a couple fun ways to DIY free art for the Frame TV. Here’s my trial and error…
One way is to make my own custom ‘art’ using PowerPoint.
This Bible verse I created on PowerPoint, pulling creativity for the colors from the beautiful opening credits of ‘A White Christmas’ for the theme. That was easy to make and just upload it… Keep reading to find out the secret I realized for the sizing.
A second way to DIY free art for the Frame TV is taking advantage of a website chock full of free art!
What’s your favorite art? I love impressionism art. Did you know that there is a free website where you can download beautiful high quality images from original works? HERE is that link for tons and tons of free artwork images.
Once on that site, I searched around and found a lovely Claude Monet painting ‘The Magpie’. Perfect for the winter display. I selected the highest resolution of pixels to download.
To get it from PowerPoint to display on TV
IMPORTANT! Saving it in the right size is the key. I made a PowerPoint custom art on my laptop in this exact size: 5.63″ high by 10″ wide. (1707 x 960) For my 55″ Frame TV, if the art isn’t saved at that exact size. I could still upload it and display it, but only as the ‘floating matte’ option. The art had to be saved as this exact size for me to be able to display it either without a matte altogether or with any of the other matte options available on the Frame TV.
The PowerPoint that I made for my Christmas Bible verse custom art was saved with a size of 5.63″ high by 10″ wide. (1707 x 960) Which is 1.77… or really really really close to 16:9, and for some reason when it’s saved as a JPEG through PowerPoint, in this exact size, and upload it to TV, (as long as I don’t select the matte option) it’ll display without a matte all together.
So once my DIY custom art, or any image saved and cropped, was saved in the right size, here is how I moved it from my laptop to my phone to the Frame TV.
Phone SmartThings App:
I added the SmartThings app to my phone.
I saved the PowerPoint custom art as a JPEG on my laptop in the right size.
Gmail:
Next, I went into my gmail and sent myself an email with that JPEG picture attached. That way I could open it from my phone.
From my phone I opened the email with picture attachment. At this point, I didn’t need to open the picture, just the email. On the picture there is a little arrow and I clicked on that and it downloaded it to my phone gallery.
Photo Gallery on my Phone:
Next I went into my phone gallery and looked for the downloads file. I opened the downloads, found the picture and clicked on it.
On the top right corner are three vertical dots that I clicked on.
I selected ‘add to album’ so that this pic would be easy for me to find. The album that I added to is one that I’ve created, called ‘FRAME TV PICS’. That way it is easy for me to find when I open my SmartThings app.
The Frame TV Remote:
Working on the TV with the TV remote now, I clicked ‘art’ option on the Frame TV:
Once in the ‘art’ option, I then selected, at the bottom, ‘my collection’:
Then selected ‘my photos’:
Phone SmartThings App:
Going back to my phone, I opened up my SmartThings app, and selected the Frame TV:
Still on my phone, I scrolled down to art mode I selected that:
There are two options on this page in the app on my phone. One is ‘browse’ and that will show up very quickly, The other is ‘add your photos’ and I have found that option takes a couple of seconds to connect with your TV and can have glitches:
Here’s a tip: If your TV and your phone are not on the exact same network, it will NOT work correctly. It won’t open up nor let you select the ‘add your photos’ option. I had issues with this, and it was frustrating! The smart links app was acting up, one thing was my TV was popping over to the 5G network, which my phone isn’t on. To fix that I deleted the 5G option on my frame TV and then turned the TV completely off, waited a minute and then turn it back on while my phone app was open. After giving it half a minute to get reconnected, the ‘add your own photos’ option showed up.
One more tip: Once I tap add your photos it takes maybe even 15 or 30 seconds for the app to open up. Most times a window will pop up and say ‘this app isn’t responding do you want to close it or wait’. I just click ‘wait’ and it does open up every single time, it just take bit, so be patient with it I guess:
I ticked the photo I wanted to upload to my Frame TV:
The final step to get your custom art into your Frame TV is to click ‘save on The Frame’ to get your art onto the TV:
The Frame TV Remote:
Now you will see your newly uploaded art on The Frame TV. I found that there isn’t a ton of storage space on the Frame TV, probably to encourage you to buy the art subscription, so it won’t store very many pictures I uploaded. I had to delete some uploaded art in order to upload different art.
Editing art after it’s uploaded to The Frame TV is simple and fun!
I clicked on the art I wanted to display and then clicked ‘options’:
This next part is important if you don’t want a matte displayed with your art.
Once I choose to click the matte option, there’s no going back to ‘no’ matte option! I found that if I clicked on ‘matte options’ (to see what would look good with my particular uploaded piece of art) but later decided I didn’t want a matte after all, I had to delete the pic from the TV and re-upload it, this time not clicking the ‘matte’ options.
So far, except for my Christmas Day Bible verse, I do prefer a matte. I think it gives the art a more ‘real art’ kind of look.
It is fun to click through the different matte sizes and colors.
Amazing to see how a different colored matte pulls and accentuates different tones in the art.
My final selection for this spring art is a subdued grey matte.
I can always go back in and change the color and style of the matte if I choose. (I just can’t display it without a matte without deleting the art from the TV and starting over)
The other day a friend popped over and thought the TV was art! I guess it’s believable! I sure am enjoying the double duty of the Frame TV!
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Here are some less technical tips I’ve written about:
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