Project: Painted Ornate Frame

Whilst I was at home in The Borders a few weeks ago I visited The Borders Scrapstore with my mum. Now, for anyone who is at all interested in anything arty or crafty this place is like heaven (there's one in Musselburgh in Edinburgh too)! You pay a yearly membership of £7 to be able to shop from their huge collection...stuff! My mum was going there anyway so naturally I ended up buying a bunch of random craft bits and bobs. The prices are extremely cheap and for £11 I got a whole bundle of things including some bits of fabric, mount boards, ribbon, sequins and this amazing frame. I had been planning to do some craft projects whist I had a week off of work and so when I was told that this frame was only £5 I had to have it! My mum always inspires me to get crafty as she always has a project on the go and so staying with her for a few days inspired me to paint this frame as well as plan some more craft projects that I'll be doing in the near future.

My intention when I picked up the frame was to attach ribbon and hang some postcards and photos on it, a bit like some that I'd seen on Pinterest, as well as this project here on Alley Hope's blog. However I wasn't sure whether to touch up the scratches with some gold paint or paint the whole frame. My mum suggested that I paint it with Annie Sloan chalk paint, which she has used a few times before, and I decided that this was definitely my preferred option. The Annie Sloan paint is stocked in a lovely little gift shop called Cloud Nine in Kelso so I popped in there and picked up one of the 100ml pots in this gorgeous blue shade called 'Provence'. 

"Recalling the shutters and doors of the South of France,
this colour works equally as well for a modern look."

I had to give the frame a couple of coats of the paint to completely cover the gold, making sure it was covering all the small grooves of the design. The chalk paint dries very quickly so it meant that I didn't have to wait too long to be able to give it a few layers of paint. I loved the colour once it had dried, and the frame looked very quirky and modern. However, I had seen a technique on Pinterest to take away some of the paint to reveal the gold again, giving it the shabby chic, kind of vintage look. After looking up a few tutorials and YouTube videos on the 'wet distressing technique' I decided to give it a go. I simply used a old damp tea towel to roughly wipe down the frame, making sure that I removed the blue paint from the edges and from the the raised areas of the ornate design. You do have to make sure you use a clean part of the tea towel every time you wipe a section to avoid spreading the blue paint across the gold again. I was surprised how such an easy technique provided a lovely finish to the frame.

The last stage in my frame project was to attach the ribbon and hang up some postcards and photos. I used a red ribbon to stand out against the cream walls in my bedroom and attached it to the back of the frame with drawing pins. I then picked a few postcards that I'd been meaning to put up for a while, and a couple of little hanging decorations and pegged them on. 

I'm very happy with the frame as I'd seen so many similar ones on Pinterest and it's a project that I'd had the intention to do for a while. It was my first time using the Annie Sloan paint and I think I'll definitely try to pick up a few more of the small pots for future use. Doing this has also given me the push to get stuck into a few other crafty projects that I have lined up, so watch this space for my next one!