Old frame rescue

It’s dangerous to put free stuff out on the table in the office! Dangerous for me, at least! A couple weeks ago I walked into work and passed an old, dusty, cracked, chipped frame with a dirty, stained, faded, torn picture in it. Did you notice that I said I passed it? Yep, I walked right by without thinking about it with just a little interest. I even went home that night without snatching it up, but when it was there in the morning, I knew I had to try to pretty it up. Kyle thought I was crazy, but he’s quickly learning to appreciate the little cheap/free projects that keep me occupied at night. Upon further inspection, I even found some little bugs crawling around between the paper and the glass! Needless to say, it lived in the hallway in our apartment building until I ripped the picture out and sanded it down. Here is a before picture. Sorry about the glare…sun and glass don’t mix well for pictures.
As I said before, it had several large chips in it. Because of the detail of the frame, I had to rebuild some of the leaf detail. I used a basic wood filler for this and just used my fingers/nails to mold it into the shape I wanted. I also tried to fill some of the larger cracks with it too.
After that dried, I gave it a quick coat of spray primer. Then I decided to paint it the same color as the cabinet. I thought the light gray would be pretty! Well, it was, but it wasn’t pretty on the wall. Because our walls are a light creamy yellow color, it blended right in while clashing a little. So, last night brought the darker gray/blue out with the paintbrush. MUCH better! Now it stands out on it’s own.

One of the reasons I like the frame so much is that it’s so versatile! I put a little bunting in it, but once I get tired of that I can change it up using whatever I have around the house. Who knows, maybe it’ll become a seasonal thing…Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, 4th of July. Endless possibilities! Kyle would be rolling his eyes right now if he was reading this! Hah! But he’s have that cute little amused smile on his face at the same time. He’s so patient with me!
The bunting was very easy to make. Well, most of it was! I had some left over muslin from something and a roll of twine from another project I might share later. I cut the twine to the right length and hot-glued it to the back of the frame so that it zigzagged (is that a word?) back and forth. I wanted to use the EcuyerDAX font for the lettering, but didn’t want to spend money on transfer printer paper. So, I printed out the letters in the correct size on normal paper and traced each on on the muslin. Yes, I traced ever single one. Don’t ask me what I was thinking! Actually, it wasn’t too hard, but by the time I was finished, my patience was as well! But the end result was worth it, in my opinion. After the letters were all traced onto their triangles, I hot-glued the string and wrapped the top of each triangle over until it cooled. Be careful if you try this…the glue likes to ooze out and burn poor little unsuspecting fingers! Here’s a closeup of the bunting.
So, next time you find a old, yucky frame, consider rescuing it! You won’t be disappointed!

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First Post!

Well, I’m just getting started and really have no idea what I’m doing!  Hopefully with a little more playing around I’ll get the hang of this and be able to use this blog to be an encouragement to others and keep family and friends informed on what’s going on in our lives!

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