the look for less: painted frame!

i'm always on the lookout for fun new paint finishes. i'm all out of love for the plain, dark brown wood finish in our home. honestly, i've taken some pieces that most people would be horrified to "ruin" & just painted them. i figure paint can always be sanded down/off and a dark stain re-done. but in the meantime, i want bright, fun colorful wood finishes in my home, not dark traditional/formal ones!

i literally stopped & said "oooh" when i saw these blue & green frames at world market:
if you've been reading here long, you know i was immediately a sucker for those green ones. but i must say the lovely neutral cream & greywash truly were almost equally delicious:
i have all but sworn off buying plasticky frames when you can do so much to make a frame look cool if it's all wood.... go messy distressy on it. glaze the heck out of it. spray paint it & glue it to another piece of wood. even the dollar store has all-wood frames & there's a rotating plethora of almost free ones at goodwill. you could even try layering & then gluing together a smaller frame on top of a bigger frame to get that big chunky edge.

i already had a nice thick wood frame that had a not so lovely dark stained finish that had been hanging somewhere in my parent's old house. it had just enough of a thickness & almost stripe to it that made it really easy to imitate the look of the green one. i was so excited to get started on it that of course i didn't take a 'before' picture. i just spray primed the frame & then went at it with a little cream crafts paint to make a messy stripe around the center & then filled in the edges with some green.

a little ralph lauren glaze in smoke [my fave] & it was done! i wrapped & hot glued some burlap around the frame's cardboard backing & was thinking about stenciling a verse or quote of some sort onto it with paint. but if i was going to do that i really wanted to have 2 matching frames to hang together.

did you see my little secret for hanging the artwork without punching a hole in it? a thumbtack plus a leftover little curtain ring. 

a little home in the living room for big girl's artwork. an ever-changing gallery.