Frame Makeover

It seems as though my post these days are a makeover of some sort. As I look around my house I realize I have had most of my stuff for a really long time. Instead of buying new stuff I have decided to change or update what I have. Here is one the projects I finished this weekend.

here is a close up

(my girls when they were little, aww!)

My little sister Tessa (also when she was little).

Apparently I don't change my pictures often either!

close up of the embellishments

\

Ready to see the before?

As you can see in the picture the girls are sitting on a green chair. My colors in my living room where hunter green and wood. I also had some couches that were kind of a tapestry pattern with gold, burgundy and hunter green. Anyway at the time these fit in perfectly. Recently I have started using light colors and my couches are a kind of caramel color. I'm still using green but a lighter shade so I thought I should update these. 

I started by spray painting them heirloom white. I came across a necklace that I had that had the perfect flowers to use.

I removed the little circles that held them together and spray painted them heirloom white also. 

Then here comes the funny part (ahem, not funny at all!)

I antiqued the front of the frames and the flowers and as I was gluing them on to the front I realized it wasn't the front at all!

This was after waiting hours for the glaze to dry AND I had even put finishing paste over it! 

UGH! Does this stuff happen to anyone else except me???

So I thought, okay forget the glaze it's too sticky and I don't want to wait for it to dry. 

I bought some rub in buff in antique gold from Michael's that I wanted to try. 

I have never used it before, and thought maybe it could make the antique look I wanted. 

I put it on a cloth and rubbed it all over the front of the the frame (after double checking it was the front)

And.....

I didn't like it. 

Sheesh. This project took a lot longer than I thought it would. 

I decided to let it dry overnight so I could get a better look at in natural light. 

And...

Nope still didn't like it. 

I didn't want to start from scratch so I used some tan craft paint over the top of the antique gold. 

It toned it down a bit and still let some of it show through, which was fine with me.

I know that was a very long story, but I didn't want you to think I just whipped it together, there were mistakes along the way. 

Anyway, after all that I glued the flowers on. The flower on the small frame came with the set that I bought to re-purpose my drawer knobs and I painted a thumbtack for the center of it.

UPDATE: The more I looked at these the more I felt they needed additional help. I didn't like the white posts so I painted them a walnut color (they were black before the white). It just seemed it needed more contrast, but not as stark as black. I also added some distressing around the edges with a brown ink pad. Oh and I removed the flower from the bottom right corner of the larger frame.

To read about the frames in the front of these two you can read my post here.

I hope you like them!

Amy

I'm linking to: