Picture Frame Refurb – V1

I have a growing collection of art prints sitting in a box in my office (mostly Tara McPherson & Jeremiah Ketner), not even collecting dust due to being sealed in an airtight container (after a minor office flood caused damage to a couple of them – this made me sad). On discovering how much cash it costs to get things framed properly and quite how crappy cheap frames can look I opted for the clearly obvious path of learning how to frame things myself from scratch. On discovering that I have not the ability, the space, or the time to make frames from scratch I opted instead for buying second hand frames (incredibly cheap from charity shops) and attempting to clean them up and improve them. I bought a bunch of paint samplers from a DIY store and some basic tools to get me started.

Here’s my first attempt. It went ok, but I really don’t like the effect of the matt paint. I need to find a different type of paint or some way of varnishing them afterwards, all of the varnishes I’ve found state they should not be used on paint (any suggestions welcome).

Plain frame from the charity shop

Oh! What have I done?

Ok, it’s not too bad but could be better.

(the picture came from Tara McPherson’s wonderful online shop Cotton Candy Machine which you should look at. I can no longer look at it, it makes holes appear in my bank account.)