You've spent three hours mining diamonds, dodging creepers, and trying not to fall into a random lava pocket in the Deep Dark. You finally get home to your base—which is basically just a mountain you've hollowed out—and you realize you have no idea where you put your spare pickaxe. It's in one of those twenty chests lined up against the wall. You start clicking. Open, close. Open, close. It's frustrating. Honestly, the easiest way to fix this mess is to learn how to make an item frame. It’s one of those "day one" survival skills that people actually forget because they're too busy trying to find Netherite.
Item frames are essentially the sticky notes of Minecraft. They’re technically entities, not blocks, which is why they look a bit different when you slap them onto a wall. They let you display your rarest loot or, more practically, label your storage. If you put a piece of raw cod on a frame, you know that chest is for fish. Simple. But getting the resources together requires a tiny bit of hunting and a lot of sticks.
The Ingredients: What You Actually Need
To get this done, you need two things: eight sticks and one piece of leather. That’s it.
Getting sticks is the easy part. You probably already have a stack of wood planks sitting in your inventory. Just turn those into sticks. You’ll need a lot of them if you plan on labeling an entire storage room. Eight sticks per frame adds up fast. If you're planning to craft a stack of 64 frames, you're going to need 512 sticks. That is a lot of trees.
The leather is where it gets a bit annoying.
You have to find cows, horses, donkeys, or llamas. Cows are the most reliable source. When you take one down, they might drop 0 to 2 pieces of leather. If you have a sword with the Looting III enchantment, you can get up to 5 pieces. It makes a massive difference. I usually set up a small cow pen early on because relying on wild spawns is a recipe for boredom.
If you’re a pacifist or just can't find a cow to save your life, you can technically get leather from fishing, though the drop rate for "junk" is pretty low. You could also try bartering with Piglins in the Nether if you have spare gold ingots. They have about a 9% chance to drop 2–10 leather. It’s chaotic, but it works.
💡 You might also like: Why Waluigi is the Mario Kart Character Nobody Can Stop Talking About
Crafting the Frame
Once you’ve gathered your eight sticks and your single piece of leather, open your crafting table.
Place the leather right in the dead center square. Then, surround it entirely with the eight sticks.
Basically, the sticks form a border around the leather. Once you see the item frame icon pop up in the result slot, drag it into your inventory. You've done it. You now have the power to organize your digital life.
Putting Your Item Frame to Work
Using the frame is straightforward. You just right-click (or use your console's secondary action button) on the side of a solid block. It’ll snap right on. Since the 1.13 Update (the "Update Aquatic"), you can even place them on the floor or the ceiling. This was a huge deal for builders because it meant you could create "plates" on a dining table or "vents" on a roof.
To put an item inside the frame, hold the item in your hand and right-click the frame. The item will shrink down and sit right in the middle.
Rotating and Retrieving
If you right-click the frame again while an item is already inside, the item will rotate 45 degrees. This is vital if you're using item frames for Map Walls. Maps in Minecraft can be huge, and sometimes the orientation is slightly off when you first place them. By clicking, you can align them perfectly.
If you want the item back, just punch it. If you're in Survival mode, the item will pop out, and the frame will stay on the wall. If you punch the frame itself, both the frame and the item will drop as items on the ground. Be careful if you're standing near a cactus or lava—I've lost many a Diamond Sword that way.
Glowing Item Frames: The Fancy Version
If you’re playing on a more recent version (1.17 and up), you might want to try the Glow Item Frame. These are incredible for basements or night-time builds because they make the item inside look illuminated, even in total darkness.
To make one, you need:
- A standard Item Frame.
- A Glow Ink Sac.
You get Glow Ink Sacs by hunting Glow Squids. These are the glowing blue guys that swim in flooded caves. They don't fight back, so it's a bit like picking flowers, just underwater. Once you have the sac, combine it with a regular frame in your crafting grid. It doesn't even need a specific pattern; just put them next to each other.
The item inside won't actually cast light on the surrounding blocks (it’s not a torch), but the item itself will be perfectly visible. It looks very "high-end" compared to the dusty look of the standard frame.
Advanced Tricks Most People Forget
Most players just use frames for chests, but there’s a lot more utility here.
For example, did you know you can put a map into an item frame to create a massive wall-mounted map? If you place frames on adjacent blocks and put maps of those areas in them, they seamlessly connect. It’s how players create those cool "satellite view" command centers.
📖 Related: Why Legend of Zelda Vaati is Still the Best Villain We Never See Anymore
Another trick involves Redstone. An item frame can actually output a signal if you put a Redstone Comparator behind the block the frame is attached to. The strength of the signal depends on the rotation of the item.
- No item: 0 signal.
- Item at 0°: 1 signal.
- Item at 45°: 2 signal.
- ...and so on, up to a signal strength of 8.
This is the secret behind those "hidden door" puzzles where you have to turn a sword in a frame to open a bookcase. It’s a bit of old-school Minecraft magic that still works perfectly today.
Why Your Frames Might Be Lagging Your Game
Here is a reality check: Item frames are entities.
In Minecraft, blocks (like dirt or stone) are very "cheap" for your computer to render. Entities (like pigs, zombies, and item frames) are "expensive." If you build a massive storage room with 500 item frames, your frame rate (FPS) is going to tank. This is especially true on older consoles or lower-end PCs.
If you start noticing your game stuttering every time you look at your storage wall, that’s why. Professional builders often use "invisible" item frames (available via commands in Java Edition) or simply use Signs instead. Signs are blocks, not entities, so they don't lag the game nearly as much.
To get an invisible item frame in Java, you have to use a command like:/give @p item_frame{EntityTag:{Invisible:1b}}
This is strictly for Creative mode or players with cheats enabled, but it makes for some incredibly clean builds where items look like they're just sitting on a shelf.
Practical Next Steps for Your Build
Now that you know the mechanics, don't just craft one and stop. Start by setting up a Leather Farm. You'll need it for books (Enchanting Tables) anyway, so you might as well get a head start. Find two cows, use wheat to breed them, and eventually, you'll have more leather than you know what to do with.
Next, go grab some Glow Ink Sacs. Even if you don't use them for every frame, having a few Glow Item Frames for your most important gear—like your first pickaxe or a Dragon Egg—adds a lot of personality to a base.
Finally, try experimenting with the Comparator trick. Building a secret room behind a painting or a wall is a classic Minecraft rite of passage. It turns a simple decorative item into a functional piece of machinery. Just remember to keep your stick supply high, because you will always need more than you think.
Organizing your base is the difference between a "starter shack" and a "megabase." It takes about ten minutes to set up a proper system, and it'll save you hours of searching through chests in the long run. Go find some cows.