Wall mirror re-do

Picked up this wall mirror at the thrift store.

If you are buying a mirror to repaint, be sure to look at the BACK of it to see that the mirror is easily removable for quicker painting.  You ‘could’  tape off the mirror if it was not easily removable, but that’s too much work for me!  If the mirror doesn’t come out, I don’t buy it!

I thought this one would work well with the new shabby Paris apartment look I’ve been working on for the antique mall.  I painted it black, then sanded and distressed it.

It looks kind of GRAY and washed out in the picture, but it is really nice and balck with bits of the gold showing through.

Close up of distressing detail.  I use a COARSE (yes coarse!) sanding sponge for distressing my smaller pieces.  For big pieces I use the orbital sander, again with coarse paper.

You can just barely see it here peeking from behind the table at the right.  I’ve hung it on the wall with a grouping of other similarly distressed formerly gold frames which have been repainted black.

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Little frames

Went on a little frame ‘binge’ last week.  Decided to dig ALL the way to the bottom of my ‘project’ table PILE and see what was down there that I needed to work on.  LOTS of little frames.  Many of them half finished.

Picked up these little framed tags YEARS ago on clearance at the craft store.  When I went to put pretty papers into them, they came apart.  So I just tossed them in the pile!  Had to completely reassemble them as I added the scrapbook paper and monograms.  Have a few pink ones too; just forgot to take a pic of them.

Little unfinished shell frames from the craft store.  Painted them antique white, then added a little stain.  Added SAND PAPER for the backing.

I usually paint designs on these little frames.  Base coat black, then a lighter top coat of color.  Then sand to distress a bit so the darker base coat shows through.  Had about a dozen of these that I had ‘prepped’ as such.  Just was NOT inspired to paint on any designs.  After I worked on the little shell frames I came across a mailer with these shell pictures in it and I just tore them out to frame!

The pink one is a scrapbook embellishment.

Then a few I just stamped on some pretty flourishes:

 

Big old picture frame turned into curio shelf

Michael loves to help me make there because they are quite fast and easy.  The KEY is finding the right FRAME to beging with.  A nice big one that is FLAT on the back. 

He just measures the sides and cuts two pieces, then cuts the number of shelves I want from plywood, then the backing from 1/8 luan.  Then I paint all the pieces BEFORE he puts it together.  Painting goes MUCH faster that way.

It’s a very simple box construction as you can see here from the back side before he added the backing.

And it doesn’t even have to be ‘perfect’ because none of the corners show once the frame in attached to the front.  After Michael assembles, I touch up where he used the nail gun and it’s done!

You can also make these WITHOUT putting any backing on them if you are going to hang it on a wall and want the wall color to show as your backing.  OR you could add fabric for your backing. 

OUR WEBSITE:  www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

A ‘happy’ accident

Gotta love it when things ‘just happen’!

Those of you who are ‘junkers’ well know that more often than not, things you pick up ’here and there’ because you ‘think’ it will work perfectly with something you picked up somewhere else a while back; just don’t fit together they way you envisioned them.  And off they go to the pile of misfits; those orphaned pieces awaiting their destinty of a perfect match ‘one of these days’. 

So, it’s a major thrill when things just happen to work together without having given it any forethought. 

Here’s my happy accident of the week:

Found this little white shelf at an estate sale.  I can always use another small shelf, especially a white one.  All kinds of places I could put and unlimited options for kinds of things I could put ON it.

I decided it would go in the pink section of the store.  To make room for it I needed to move a few things around; one of which was a baby bassinet that I had three pink frames propped in.  I took the frames out, moved the bassinet, put the shelf in place, and then had to move the frames while I pondered where to put them.  I had just set the frames up against the white shelf while I studied the space and considered display options.

Hmmmmmmm . . . . It looks like the biggest pink frame will fit perfectly on the front of the little white shelf!

It did!  And the two other frames fit perfectly on top of the shelf!

For now I still just have the frame leaning against the shelf.  But I will probably go ahead and have Michael air nail it to permanently attach it.

The day before I put all this together, I had stopped by the thrift store and saw a HUGE (3′ x 5′) big, heavy, black and gold, totally gaudy frame.  I pondered buying it, but had no idea what I’d use it for.  So I passed. 

But after I saw how cool it looked to ‘frame a shelf’, I called Michael and had him go back to the thrift store and pick up that black frame, and will have him build a shelf to fit behind it.  Just have to decide what color to repaint it!

Here’s wishing you a ‘happy accident’!

OUR WEBSITE:  www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

More old frames

Before

 . . . . . & after:

Old windows made into shelves

Yep!  Those are some HUGE old 16 pane windows that Michael dragged home!  We had made shelves out of smaller windows before, but never any this big. 

First Michael had to finish breaking out all the glass.  Then he just built a basic shelf to fit behind the window frame.  We left the frames ‘as is’ with their nice vintage patina.  For the shelf part I used a slightly watered down white paint so it would look a little worn and not too glaringly new compared to the window pane.  As always, I painted all the shelf pieces BEFORE Michael put them together.  MUCH faster and easier that way!

I had a little bit of touch up to do on the sides of the frames once they were put together.  The watered down white paint worked just fine here too.

Decided I wanted some color, but not too much, so I just painted the shelf backing.  And here ya go:

A new batch of old frames

This time I painted them in my yummy new Ralph Lauren Robin’s egg blue paint.  Then I just lightly sanded them with a coarse sanding sponge to distress them a little. 

The green barrel I found at an estate sale last weekend.  already painted that wonderful cottage green color.  I may just have to use this one ‘as is’!

OUR WEBSITE:  www.cscrafts.com/aj.html

Framed letters

What is it about finding something that has your name or initials on it?  Something personalized?  It just makes you feel so very special for some reason.

Remember the little personalized license plates for your bike when you were a kid?  I always looked for MY name, even though I knew it was in vain.  I HATED my name!  Still not very fond of it, which is why I prefer to go by my initials.  Surprisingly ‘my name’ has made it’s way to the top ten list of most popular names for baby girls these days . . . and I still don’t like it.  Still people who feel the need to guess what aj stands fornever seem to guess correctly.  But of course now that I’ve said that on the internet, you can easily look up top ten names for baby girls and probably find out if you are so compelled.  But that’s cheating!

I’ve been on a letter kick lately.  Been finding all kinds of shapes and sizes of them in the craft supply stores.    Having fun painting them and doing them up differently.

I just kind of grab random letters, rather than picking or choosing certain ones.  But recently I just so happened to have grabbed the letters to spell out DREAM.

The F C E I letters on the shelf below DREAM, are just some of the random ones I’ve done.  They are on a base to be free standing instead of mounted on something for putting up on a wall.

The frames for DREAM are 7″x7″, an unusual find.  Came with a 4×6 mat originally.  And I tea stained some of the mats and some paper and made signs like these with them:

For the DREAM letters, I used various scrapbook papers to cover the backing.  Painted the letters black (these particular ones are made of foam, but don’t look like foam once painted and varnished) then just glued the letter to the backing.  The letter are about and inch and a half deep so they stick out farther then the frames.  (Now what do I do with all those leftover 7×7 pieces of glass and those unique shaped mats?!?!)

Here are a few random letters that I mounted on old repro maps (actually pictures of maps from a calendar)

For a more ‘girly look’ these would be fun to back with lace over pretty colored papers and they hung from a pretty ribbon.

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Framed

I’m not sure HOW or WHY I got so ‘into’old picture frames, but I do love them; and use them in lots of different ways in the store.  (and always sell a lot of them!)  Old frames are plentiful at garage sales, and very inexpensive when the glass and/or backing are missing.   Just check to make sure the corners are still in good shape and tightly connected.  Old brown frames are my favorite color to re-paint.  A light sanding, (unless there is a lot of ornate work!)  topped with a coat of black paint, then another light sanding to distress it a bit and you have a wonderful looking frame.   For frames that have a lot of ornate detail on them, I use flat black spray paint.

In this picture you can see the distressing close up.

I love how assorted sizes of frames look displayed in a group.  Here I’ve set them on top of an old trunk.  They would look wonderful set atop a fireplace mantle.

I also like them lined up on a wall shelf!

Black seems to be the most neutral color for repainting frames, and what sells the most in our store.  But, colors can be fun too.  Couldn’t resist doing a few for the shabby beach cottage section in the store!  The bulkier white frame and two toned turquoise/blue one setting on the table were made by Michael out of some vintage moulding.

In this next little vignette, the frame sort of frames out the whole display.

Just a couple of frames on this shelf gave the display the height variance I needed.

Sometimes I hang a frame within a frame with something else framed in the middle.  This old door was the perfect backdrop for such a display.

Or make a wall hung shelf display really stand out by framing it with a great big frame.

And when I ran out of wall space and needed something to just prop all my misc frames and mirrors in, this old sturdy doll bed (HEAVY 2×6 construction!  I can barely lift the thing!)  was perfect! 

Happy framing to all!

OUR WEBSITE:  www.cscrafts.com/aj.html