Born Again Frame

 Once upon a time, I was driving home from carpool about 1 block from my house.  I took a curve and immediately put on the brakes.  One of my neighbors had this frame sticking out of their trash.  I couldn't put the car in park fast enough to get out of the car and grab this treasure.  I loved the ornateness of it.  However, how was I going to fix the 3 corners that were so obviously damaged?  Well, I would think about it for another day.  Well, think about it I did for many days, in fact years.

  I just needed the confidence to acquire a new skill.  How terrifying!  It wasn't that I had put a lot of money into this piece already.  I pulled the wall Spackle out from the garage and started putzing around.  I attempted to model pieces to match the one remaining corner.  Below you will find a picture of the frame after I had 'sculpted' and I use that term loosely-- the corners.

  By all means, this project is not perfect, quite frankly, none of my projects are.  Once dried, I sanded the rough edges and spray primed it.  This next part was the really scary part.  I was going to silver leaf the frame.

After reading the instructions on a package of silver leaf papers purchased at Hobby Lobby, I got to work.  I asked my oldest daughter at the time to help.  She was about 10 years old.  We each started on different areas of the frame.  The first step after cleaning is to spray an adhesive that works with the silver leaf paper.  Then, you wait a few minutes, and start laying a piece of the silver leaf onto the wet adhesive and smooth it out with a soft paintbrush.  It couldn't be easier.  I really liked the look that it gave me.  This frame used 2 packages of the silver leaf paper.  It usually runs about $8.99 per package.  I wait for a 40% off coupon from the Sunday newspaper and stock up.  I really like this product.  I didn't want complete coverage because I wanted to retain some of its character.  Notice the patchiness in the below pictures.

The next deal was to find a mirror large enough to fit the frame.  This is about the time I found Habitat for Humanity Restore.  I walked in and picked up a mirror that was larger than I needed for $10.00.  Being a rookie at all this, I asked the store employee if she knew where I could possibly get this cut to fit a frame.  She directed me to a mirror and glass cutting store.  The man there charged me $15.00 to not only cut it, but staple it into my frame.  What a deal!  You couldn't buy a mirror 2" by 3" for $25.00. 

So roughly $11.00 for the silver leaf and $25.00 for the mirror and cutting, the grand total came to about $36.00.  OK, the sweat equity was there too, but it was so worth it!

Another rescue mission accomplished.