Mini-Repurposed Frames

 

Here's another idea Nicole and I worked on when my hubby was out of town and we had our "crazy" craft day.

Before I explain how we made the frames, I need to tell you about the little decorations inside. 

At  The Graphics Fairy, we found this vintage handwriting.  It's so cool how you can instantly print her images on your own printer..for free.  They were perfect. 

Next we put these teeny tiny keys, tied with thin jute twine.  We poked holes right through the cardboard backing after we glued the papers on and wove in the twine.

The pictures are deceptive. The frames are only 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, with about a 2 1/2 inch opening.

The  2 inch keys were perfect for our mini frames!

In our favorite home decor store, we saw mini frames that were really ornate...and expensive.

We wondered how we could make them for super cheap.

In the thrift stores you can find large ornate frames for pennies, but they're always weird sizes.  We thought that maybe we could chop them up and resize them.

Here's a picture to show the scale of how small these are.

So this is what we started with.  I do have to say the old prints were kinda cute!

We used a miter saw to accomplish the first few cuts and realized how, um....dangerous this is!

The frames are so mini, that it's put your fingers awfully close to the blade.

We were trying to salvage as much of the frame as we could and probably put our fingers at risk....or should I say...NICOLE's fingers at risk. :)

The frames are joined at an angle which made them difficult to cut in a miter box.  But it is possible if you don't want to risk it on the miter saw.

First we split the frame in half.

And then we split the other side in half.  We were trying to save the original corners to eliminate having to glue more corners back together.

We made straight cuts first, and then mitered...to keep it even.

Not bad?  But, I was on edge watching Nicole's fingers SO close to the blade!

With a TON of elbow grease you can do it this way, if you want an angled cut.

Or....you can NOT try and save the original corners, and cut the entire frame apart.  Then reassemble all four corners.  The frame would look much more flat.

We did it on this black frame.  We cut at each corner. 

Marked, and cut using the miter BOX.  Much safer. 

Be careful if any of you try this!  We don't want to be responsible for helping you cut off your fingers!:) 

As for putting them back together, they are so small that we used Hard as Nails Glue and taped them to keep in place until dry. 

We spackled the corners, spray painted, and distressed.  I like how the original gold came back through.

Really....cheap....project. 

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