Old thrifted frames to new colorful ones!

Hi there Ladies,

My name is Sandy and I'm a missionary wife here in Bolivia! We've been here 4 years now and we are going back for the first time on our furlough very soon. Miracle Whip, oh how we've missed you! 

I'm going to be doing tiny little DIY posts on this blog for you all.  I love doing these kind of projects around my house! When its actually one I can do because I can find what I need for the project. That has been kind of challenging for me, figuring it all out and translating it from American Pinterest users that have Walmart and Home Depo available... to me with only small limited hardware stores to get my materials from. I know it will be different for each country and the terminology definitely  too. My advice? Keep your eyes wide open. You never know when you'll see something useful. And when you don't see it- show them a picture or describe describe describe!! 

For this post I had a box of miss matched photo frames I purchased from a  retiring missionary, and left over chalk paint from some other projects. Yesterday, while the kiddos were blissfully napping,  I decided to tackle that box and see what I could come up with.

Here is the recipe. 

OH I just LOVE the gold-ish detail on this particular frame!

The foreign field load down:

 They sell a pretty limited color scheme in colors for latex here (no paint swatches to take to the nice store person who can then mix the beautiful paint color for me.) So, I just bought liquid water base tint to get the colors I wanted. Be patient and don't conform until you've gotten the color you want! Google is amazing for figuring out what primary colors it will take to get you the color you want.

For the Plaster of Paris-  honestly if I translated that NO ONE would know what I was talking about here. (Um, quiero yeso de Paris.) Plaster, all the way from Paris. Yup. So, after a tiny bit of research and realizing what the constructions guys use here for plastering walls and ceilings which is Kal or Stucco, I figured that this plaster of paris thing wasn't going to be so hard to find after all!  So, since we are in the process of building our adobe house (VERY VERY VERY slow process) I just asked my hubby to bring me a few cups full as I needed it for different projects.  We can buy it by the kilo here at construction stores though. :)

I can't emphasize enough how necessary the Hot Water will be. Since I was using gritty construction Stucco I found that when I mixed the paint with hot water and then let it set a day, so that the water works on getting the sand size grains dissolved, that painting was much easier and the paint itself was much smoother! Making it possible to easily smooth down the dried surface with a Brillo pad instead of putting a lot of effort and arm grease into using sand paper. I've done it both ways now and letting the paint stand a day + Brillo pad is the way to go on this one ladies! Also, if you paint thickens up just thin it out with water - no problems.

What you'll need:

Paint Brush

Brillo Pads

A work surface you don't mind getting messy (washes away easily because it's water base) or a plastic shower curtain works too! Good excuse to go out and buy a nice new one by using your old one.

THIS is my awesome workshop! Which reminds me - we need to cut the grass...again. :( 

The mismatched frames and the green ones with their first coat of paint. The chalk on the wall is courtesy of my little daughter's visiting friends trying their own hand of "chalk paint." 

For prep you can either sand these down a tad or just dust them off like me. Chalk paint sticks to anything! In this case though, some of the frames had  gold paint on them already and I wanted that to show through when I scuffed them up a bit. 

I recommend doing 3-4 coats of paint. Allowing to dry 3/4 between each coat.

It took me an hour to do these.

Once they're good and crispy dry I took a Brillo Pad to them to smooth them out a bit and bring out the wood where I liked it most or where it happened to just sand away to the wood... and I just went with it.

Then I sealed it with wax. 

All I can find here is orange wood floor wax from the cleaning section of our little mini market and it works perfectly! The color will really come out at this point also. Being chalk paint it will dry a few shades lighter than the actual wet paint color you mixed. A few coats of wax should do it! 

If you want a little bit of a sheen just buff with a cloth.

And here they are!

Not sure what to do with that big brown frame yet, but I'm kind of leaning towards leaving that one wood. All I need are my black and white photos and this one's done! Oh, and our house to finish in a couple years so I can hang them up too. :) The anticipation is killing me, but I know it will be all the sweeter after having waited.

If you have ANY questions or comments I would be glad to help you out. And if that didn't just sound like customer service-  so so sorry! Haha- habits die hard!

Chau Chau!

Aqua

Green

Blue with the gold showing through.

Store your left over paint in a glass jar for later...nothing better than ready made paint for another project! 

P.S. I had previously mixed a bunch of the aqua color paint ( in January) so I had a lot of that left over...and just added more water to the mix and green tint to get that farmy green and lots more blue tint to get that ocean blue.