Thrifted Frame Makeover

Like I said before, I have been wedding crazy lately. Therefore, I've been running lots of errands and popping out lots of projects. As one of my wedding stops, I decided to try the thrift store to see if there was anything I could make something from. My main idea was to look for frames that I could use to hold our engagement photos and have them sit around the venue. And boy was I in luck. I found a bunch of different sized frames that had cool detail and all I had to do was spray paint them brown. I'll have pictures of those eventually. 

As I kept searching the shelves, I came across this super cool frame! 

It was pretty dingy and dusty, but nothing a little spray paint can't fix.  Plus, it was only 3 bucks and I had the perfect idea of how to use it.

Like I've said before, we are having a photo booth at the wedding. (Thanks to dad!) Not to mention, I've already shown you some of the props I've made for it. Here and here. I decided this frame would be perfect to use as a chalkboard to just "display" the photo booth. 

Kind of like this one. 

Except, this is mine 

It really doesn't look like I did anything to it, but I promise I did. It desperately needed a new coat of paint.

 Before I did anything, I took off the back and the glass. I was slightly taken aback when I saw I needed a screwdriver to take the back off. I have never seen that on a frame. Maybe I just don't get out much. 

I then took some ivory spray paint and went to town on the frame. 

To make it a chalkboard, I cleaned off the glass piece and used 2 coats of my chalkboard spray paint. This turned out to be disastrous on the first try. While it was drying, the wind decided to blow really hard causing all of my newspaper to fly up and hit the freshly painted glass, leaving streaks and chunks of paper stuck to it. Epic fail. However, I accidentally found out one time that Goo-Gone takes off spray paint. Who knew? So, I decided to start over. I took my messed up glass, soaked it with Goo-Gone, and started scrubbing. (FYI, this was done over the bathtub). It worked great getting it off the glass...but then I had another problem. It was now all over the bottom of the bathtub. And my hands. And my arms. I felt like I was in the Cat in the Hat. You know that scene, where the kids can't get rid of the pink junk? Yeah, that. It was miserable. But thankfully it eventually all went away and I was able to try spraying it again. In this case, the second time was a charm!

I also absolutely adore the detail on this frame. And I could not be more excited that we are officially down to the double digits! Happy weekend!