Introduction: Harry Potter 'Moving' Picture Frame

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About: We're Mother Daughter Projects, sharing our DIY adventures as we learn to maintain, improve, decorate, and use tech in our homes.

I've been a fan of Harry Potter since high school. Love the books, love the movies, love the theme park! I also love Apple and all my devices. I have kept all my old mobile devices through the years in hope that I could use them again one day for something. I found that something! I used my first and second generation iPod touches for this project (I have a few old iPhone's waiting for a project too).

As a Harry Potter fan, I know this is not exactly like the Harry Potter pictures. The people actually move in Wizarding World pictures but old iPods don't work with live photos- so if you were to use new tech in this project you could probably be truer to HP pictures.

Step 1: Watch the Video

Step 2: Gather Supplies

Materials:

  • Shadow Box (8x10 Hobby Lobby)
  • Black Foam Board (20x30 Hobby Lobby)
  • Scrapbook Paper Frames (got these from Hobby Lobby a few years ago)
  • (2) Mobile Devices (I used old iPod Touches- you could check eBay if you don't have any)
  • Double sided tape
  • Black Duct Tape

Step 3: Cut 2 Pieces of Foam to Fit Shadow Box

Step 4: Decide Layout of IPods and Frames

Step 5: Cut Out Spots for IPods

Step 6: Add Your Fav Pics Around the IPods

I printed out some favorite pictures to add around the iPod pictures.

Step 7: Attach the Pictures and Foam in Place

I used double sided tape to attach the pictures, the two pieces of foam board together, and the foam board to the shadow box.

Step 8: Make Pull Tab for IPods

I used duct tape to make a pull tab to easily remove the iPods.

Step 9: Attach Frames to Glass

I used double sided tape to attach the iPod frames to the front of the glass. When the shadow box is closed, only the iPod screens can be seen and everything else is hidden.

Step 10: Done!

This was a fun project! After I figured out how to put it together, it took about an hour to finish. For the iPods, I just synced some of my fav pictures to them from my Mac. I intentionally put only vertical/horizontal pictures on the respective iPods. I thought about wiring this up so the iPods could charge in the frame, but I decided it would be easy enough to take them out to charge and to sync new pictures. I get about 5 hours of picture time from these (I also put them in airplane mode to get the best battery life).

Please check out our video to see this frame in action!