Estelle de Paris

I was in need of art for my walls in my new apartment and didn’t want to spend too much. So a trip to the good will for the frames, to the craft store for the mats, a little work and voila!

The good thing with frames thrifted at the good will is their price but you might not be able to find a lot of frames with the same tint of varnish or wood. With a little bit of work you can turn random and ugly into wonderfulness for cheap!

I framed pictures of Paris and prints of Mark Ryden.

What do you need?
-Frames
-Spray paint primer
-Foam paint brushes
-Acrylic paint
-Very fine paint brushes to outline the creases of the frames.
-A damp rag

Prepare your frames:
-First you need to clean your frames with a damp clothe and let them dry before you do anything else. Then sand them with a fine grain sand paper. Wipe the dust off with a dry rag.

- Coat the frames with primer. I used gray here because I wanted to paint my frames black, if you want to paint your frames with a lighter color you can use white primer. I recommend to use spray bottles more than cans, is is easier and the coats are more regular. Plus it is also really affordable.

Make sure to do this outside or in a well ventilated area away from pets and kids and proceed to the spraying fun! Allow the paint to dry as recommend by the merchant.

Paint the frames:
-It might take two coats of acrylic craft paint depending on the kind you use. It is an average $1.5 per 2 fl. oz bottle.
For this project, I bought one pure black as the main color, one metallic pure gold and one metallic silver sterling to outline the creases of the frames.

Outline the creases:
-Your frames might have creases in the wood work and because an all black frame is kinda dull, you can outline them with gold, silver or hot pink or whatever color you’d like.
To do so you need to use extra fine paint brushes size 00 or 000.

Wipe any excess of paint while still wet with a rag.

Tadda!