French Wall Decor Made From Thrifted Picture Frames
So Chic!!!
I love sharing a good thrifted DIY craft with everyone. These chic french wall frames are not only cost friendly, but very easy to make. I love french inspired decor and these work so well in my home. If you do too, visit my post; French Country For The Home to find some great ideas on how to incorporate this style into your home.
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My local thrift shop always has tons of old frames. Some scratched, missing backings or have outdated prints in them. I decided on one of my trips there, to grab a handful and turn them into some good use. I tried to select a variety of different style picture frames. Smooth frames, carved, wood and metal.
Materials You Will Need:
- Thrifted picture frames
- Few Different Shades of paint for frames (I used white, silver gray, and mink gray)
- Paint Brush
- Assorted French Stencils
- Paint to stencil (I used white and black)
- Hot glue gun/glue sticks
- Hardware for hanging (such as a small sawtooth)
Preparing Your Thrifted Picture Frames
To start, I took out all the glass from each frame and set aside. Two of the frames had prints in them and had a matted backing verses a regular photograph picture frame. For those, I use a flathead screw driver to loosen up the staples holding the backing in. Once loosened, I pulled out with a set of pliers. You can recycle any of the cardboard inserts and trash any faux prints if you do not plan on using them. Lastly, I cleaned all of the dust of the frames, so they would be ready to be painted.
Time To Paint Your Thrifted Frames
For smaller thrifted projects like this one, I tend to use what I have on hand for paint. So I ended up using a combination of chalk paint and spray paint. You honestly can use what ever kind you prefer. I had to do about 2 coats for each frame to make sure I got into all the decorative grooves and had full coverage. I had 5 frames to paint. I painted 2 of them in silver gray, 2 of them in a mink gray and the last one in white. I thought this would make a very nice combination on a wall or even sitting on a shelf.
Applying Your French Stencil
Before applying your french stencil, you will want to make sure you clean the glass very well on either side. I find that soap and water cleans glass the best. But good old glass cleaner will work too. Then I flipped my frame over and added a small amount of glue with my glue gun around the entire inside where the glass would sit. Be careful here, to much glue when pressed down by the glass will spread out and show on the front side behind the glass.
Next, you want to place down your glass in place and give it a few lite presses. Its important that you move fairly quickly after you glue the entire inside of the frame. Hot glue dries extremely quick and you want to make sure you get the glass in there fast. To ensure my glass was not going anywhere, I added more glue to the inside of the frame with the glass in place.
Now you are ready to add your french stencils! Couple stenciling tips: One, make sure you tape down the stencil if it is not a rubber kind so it will not shift when painting. Two, make sure it is completely flat onto the glass before painting. If the edges of your frame are in the way, consider cutting your stencil to fit it just right on top of the glass.
You can by all means, paint your stencils on before gluing in your glass pieces. The only reason I avoided this, was due to the fact that every time I use a hot glue gun, I always end up with one or two of those mini spider web glue strings and I did not want to chance it landing on the painted stencil. Removing the glue string could have resulted in the paint coming off. Anybody else battle with the mini spider glue strings? Lastly tip three: If your stencil has any lettering such as Paris, make sure that it will be facing the correct way and not backwards from the front of the frame before starting to stencil it on.
Hardware For Hanging
The only thing left to do is add on hooks for hanging to the back of your new french wall decor and start enjoying them! I used small sawtooth hooks for my frames, but there are so many options out there if those will not work for you. Be sure to protect your finished frames from scratching when attaching your hooks. I laid my frames down on top of a towel covering a table so they would not get scratched and this method worked out great.
Chic French Wall Decor
I am so excited about how great these turned out to be and the fact that I was able to repurpose all those thrifted frames. The best part is all the different ways you can decorate with them. You can use them for shelf decorating or even hang them in a cluster on a wall. Either way they will look amazing in your home!
Let Me Keep Inspiring You
Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. I hope you enjoyed this post and are inspired to make some French wall decor of your own. I would love to keep on inspiring you with DIY decor ideas, furniture painting, Decorating tips and more. Just sign up for my weekly email list and I will handle the rest.
Love The Space That Surrounds You Everyday!
-Meagan-
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9 Comments
The+Antiqued+Journey
Beautiful idea!! I Love how you re-purposed those frames!!!
mtrento
Thank You so much.
Vin
wow! Love the idea.
mtrento
Thank you very much.
Kimberly
Thank you for sharing this on Traffic Jam Weekend. It has been chosen as a fave feature for this week’s link party that goes live on Thursday at 5:00 pm CST.
mtrento
Kimberly,
Thank you so much for the feature! I’m really excited it was chosen as a fave! Thanks for stopping by. Can not wait to do another link party when I get back from traveling.
Melonie Genovese
Your style is unique compared to other people I’ve read stuff from. I appreciate you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess I’ll just bookmark this site.
mtrento
Melonie,
Welcome to Decorative Inspirations. Thank you so much for enjoying my blog. I post once a week and you can sign up for weekly emails and never miss any new decor ideas, decorating tips, furniture painting and gardening. Thanks for stopping by I really appreciate it.
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