Different Uses For Frames

Hi everyone!

I thought I'd shift gears a bit and show you something other than Filofaxes.

We moved into our home 8 years ago.  I needed to re-decorate as the previous owners had, shall we say, eclectic taste.  (:  Picture purple walls, silver blinds and bannisters, lime green shelving. You get the picture!

Aside from painting every surface of the house, I also needed to accessorize.

I love mirrors, and I wanted to incorporate them in the design.  They were very expensive though, particularly in the styles I wanted.  So I had to improvise.  I bought crown molding, turned it into a frame, cut a mirror to size, and I had my framed mirror!  It was exactly what I wanted.

Framed mirror at fraction of store-bought price

Another framed mirror in the guest bedroom

A while ago, my grandmother gave me some old frames that used to hang in her house.  I took them home, knowing exactly what I was going to do with them.

One I turned into a framed magnetic chalkboard.  (It's obviously not Halloween, but a house turned into a church, a graveyard was added, and my daughter and I were practicing drawing ghosts - and that's what's on it now.)  It's by the front door now, and is purely decorative, but if I move it to the kitchen, I could use it to write menus, notes to members of the family, etc.  I stuck magnets to the chalk and eraser so they'd always be accessible when needed.

Boo!  (:

Another one I turned into a framed clipboard.  I strung wire across the frame, and clipped laundry clips that I painted and stamped to match my theme.  It's currently a purgatory of stuff I don't know what to do with yet.  That white notepaper at the bottom right is Samantha Brown's autograph addressed to my daughter.

Cheap and easy, and functional.

(Disclaimer:  I don't want to mislead you -- I didn't actually do the wood-working for these.  I have a handyman/carpenter who comes to the house and 'executes' things to my specifications.)


Lastly, this was a frame with a primitive country image on it that I no longer wanted.  I spray-painted it white and distressed the edges a little bit.

French design stenciled on spray-painted wood frame

Then, I stenciled a French design on it.  I found a template online with a mirrored image, printed it out, and did a wet transfer onto the frame.  A little bit of touch up with black acrylic paint was needed but it didn't need to be perfect as I wanted it to have a vintage, distressed look.


(This I did myself, but it was easy-peasy.)

I have quite a few more in the attic, waiting for inspiration to strike.

I know these are not necessarily all "storage" ideas, but I hope you found them interesting anyway.  (:

My next project is to replace the mirror in the guest bathroom with a -- guess what -- framed mirror.  (:

Thanks for visiting!