Recycled Picture frame

I found this horrible nasty MDF picture frame in a skip/dumpster!! It has a perspex/plexiglass panel studded to the front and it was very badly marked! (probably why it was getting thrown out) lol

Soooo...... after getting permission to take it, I brought it home and had a wee think! I KNEW I could SOMETHING with it!

I managed to prize the studs off the 'glass' panel and remove it. I then sanded down the whole frame and gave it a couple of coats of cheap white 'mixing' white acrylic paint ( I don't have any gesso) :( I put it aside to dry and then stamped out those gorgeous butterflies from The Patchwork Butterfly themeplate from Chocolate Baroque ! I coloured the images using Inktense Watercolour Pencils!! LOVE these pencils! Such lovely rich colours when they are 'activated'!


Onto the Background!....When the paint was dry I randomly dabbed on some Adirondack Eggplant paint then gave the whole thing another coat of white acrylic, this time it was quite runny so that the colours would blend a bit better. When THAT was dry I randomly scribbled with the Inktense Pencils (Teal Green, Fuchsia and Sea Blue) then gave it another coat or runny white acrylic to blend those in!

When that was dry I sprayed over some Glimmer Mists ( Periwinkle, Spring Mint, Robin's Egg Blue and Wheat Fields)  Then set the whole thing aside to dry and nipped downstairs for a coffee!! lol


I Stamped the Butterfly images,  The scrolls and the verse is done in Archival Black, onto the background using the Archival Whispers Inks in Rio Purple, I then over stamped them in Clear Versamark and used some Sparkle and Shine Gilded Ivory Embossing powder, slightly offsetting the images. I then cut out and stuck down the Butterflies again offsetting them against the background images.

Now onto that horribly marked 'glass' panel. It didn't seem to matter what I did to 'clean' it you could STILL see the horrible nasty marks....sooooo.... I decided to do an acetate overlay! I printed off the phrase from the Butterfly Whimsy again from Chocolate Baroque . Now as the sheet is slightly smaller than the actual 'glass' I had to find a way to stick it down without ruining the whole thing with glue showing! So I dug out an original Sizzix die (Hinges, mounts, handle and photo turns) I just glued these to the acetate sheet, so that they would reach the holes for the studs when I put the 'glass' back on! A wee bit of a 'cheat' but it worked out well and hid the glue! The Acetate overlay doesn't totally hide the marks on the panel but it does not too bad a job! :)

After the 'glass' was re-attached I 'distressed' the edges using the Archival Whispers inks in Azure Seas and Rio Purple. I thought it was a nice way to finish things off.

It wasn't really a massive project but DID involve a lot of prep work which took a bit of time! Just as well I have a fair bit of patience then isn't it! lol

Anyway, thought you'd like to see a little close up of what the frame looked like BEFORE I got my hands on it.....lol...

Horrible innit!? lol

The photos are clickable if you want a better look.

Thanks for dropping by, take care and Happy Friday! :D

Jackie x