Salvaged Garage Sale Freebie

A few months back I mentioned that I found a nice sized free frame at a garage sale.  Me being me forgot to take a before picture but lets just say it was an ugly gold (like the normal old frame color) with this gem of a photo inside:

A true gem I tell you.  But the wonderful thing was the freeness of it all.  I had big plans for this one, I was going to make it the focal point of my new collage wall in my dining room.  Unfortunately, its been a slow moving process, my time is consumed with obsessing over Addison's first birthday party planning (rightfully so).  But I finished it a few weeks ago (just this particular frame, not the collage wall) and haven't had the chance to share yet.  

On to the project!  I started by wiping down the frame with some rubbing alcohol both to clean the dust off and any grease that may have been hiding in that shiny gold.  I then applied a nice coat of primer before turning the whole thing a pretty Valspar Cool Jade (teal).  I just love this Valspar spray paint, I'm now hooked.

(I got excited and forgot to take a picture before it started getting dark outside.)

I love the color but decided I wanted a distressed look and to tone it down a little bit.  Being the impatient person that I am I grabbed the first bottle of whatever I could find to use to distress it.  What I found was about a 50 year old bottle of walnut stain, left in the house I'm sure from my great grandfather when he lived here!  I also found a sanding pad and sanded the edges and roughed up a couple of places before I liberally applied the stain.  I let it sit for about 2 minutes before I started trying to wipe it off.  Well, let me just say, 50 year old stain that has been exposed to heat and cold is incredibly sticky and all it was doing is leaving behind fibers and finger prints.hmmm.  So I decided just to set it out in the sun and let the stain dry to the frame.  Lucky for me, it worked like I had planned to do it that way all along and I was left with a frame that looked like this:

OMG, Love.  So happy with how it turned out, could do without the little fibers stuck to it but when not in macro on the camera they can't be seen.

Meanwhile I made a run to Jo-Ann's and with the help of my best friend we picked out a fabric that goes perfectly with the teal of the frame and the brown of my wall.  I covered up that hotness of a picture that came in the frame with 2 layers of quit batting and then covered it with my chosen fabric, I just used my handy hot glue gun to keep it all in place.  Next I took my re purposed chicken wire from my friends old rabbit hutch and stapled it the back on the inside of my frame, then attached the fabric covered photo back in its home. Now we have a awesome collage frame that I can clip whatever I want in place and easily change out/move things.

What am I using as clips?  Well while I was at Jo-Ann's I found the mini clothes pins that I quickly sprayed with my Valspar to match the frames to use to hold my photos, invites, etc in place.  Easy project, not sure why it took over a month! :)  I am in love with it and I can't wait to get some more inspiration for items to put in the frames that I want to surround this frame with.