Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Picture Frame Makeover into Mirror


This project is one I did a while back for my nieces birthday. I have been wanting to blog about it for awhile now but have just been on the busy side getting my Etsy shop up and running. I have made 2 sales so far! And it feels great!

For my project I took an old picture frame I had laying around from my husband's grandmothers house. The frame always bugged me since I am NOT a gold fan. But I loved the details in the wood so I kept it knowing that someday I'd figure out what to do with it.
I knew that I wanted to make a mirror as a gift and I was orginally going to build my own frame but I walked past this frame in my craft room and had an awh ha moment! Here's a picture of what the frame look like originally.
 The first thing I did was take the painting out of the frame. The painting doesn't bug me at all. I think it is pretty. It just needs a new home/frame now. But that is a future project.
 
For the mirror part I had some of this airline grade mirror scrap that the hubby had brought home from work (another thing that has been laying around waiting for me to come up with a project for). It is really cool stuff too. It isn't glass so it won't break. Perfect for an energetic niece too.
 I took the original painting and traced its size onto the back of my mirror scrap
And then cut it out with my jigsaw. It cut pretty easy too! I was sort of worried about how I was going to do it.
I then went back to work on the frame. I first painted it with some leftover house paint we had lying around. I didn't bother covering the black velvet stripe since I knew I'd be covering that later. And then I got some plain old craft paint and mixed up a dark turquoise color that I liked and painted the inner molding piece of the frame.
I let that dry and then with the left over turquoise paint, I added water to turn it into a glaze. I used that to brush onto the white making sure to get into all the groves of the fancy molding and then quickly wiped it back off with paper towel. Sorry I didn't take pictures of this step.
I was loving the effect! I then took some Light blue/teal grosgrain ribbon I had in my stash (I think I got it at the dollar store). I hot glued it over the black velvet and then added another skinny burgundy ribbon top of that. It still needed a little something so I added the bows on the corners. And TA DAH!
Isn't it pretty! I almost didn't want to give it away I liked it so much!

3 comments:

The Mothership said...

good job! it really looks great! I love the colors you chose!

Pam said...

This is now an interesting mirror thanks to your creative touch. Well done!

Its So Very Cheri said...

I came by last week to look at your project but was just looking through all of them. I don't see the use of any of our sponsor's products on your project? You are more than welcome to enter another project that has used at least one of the products. You do need to have your entries in by this evening.

Cheri