From Picket Fence Scraps to Shabby Chic Photo Frames

Hello!! I promise that I had every good intention to get this post up on Monday, but time got away from me and I'm just now able to sit down with my laptop to show you a trash-to-treasure project that I've been working on:

A while back my hubby was working on a fence project, and had several scrap pieces of the fence lumber left over. He was tossing them into the trash, (silly man!!), and I rescued the pieces because I knew that I would eventually create something with the scraps. I ended up using a few of them to create a cute, shabby-chic photo frames, so I thought you'd like to see how I made them.

I started out with several scraps of fencing, some Elmer's school glue, acrylic paint and a couple of sponge brushes:

I wanted to give the paint a crackle finish, so to do that inexpensively I first applied a coat of Elmer's glue to the wood, using a sponge brush to coat the glue evenly across the wood:





I let the glue set for about 5 minutes, then I applied a quick coat of acrylic paint with another sponge brush. It's important to only put a quick coat of paint over the glue; don't keep painting over the glue or you won't get the desired crackle finish that you're wanting. The paint application doesn't have to be perfect...after all, you're wanting an aged/distressed finish in the end. :)

 

As the paint dries, you'll begin to see the crackling finish appear. (Note: if you want more crackle in your paint, once everything is completely dry, repeat the steps above until you've achieved the finish that you like.)

While the paint is drying, I painted a paint stir stick in the same color. It will be used as a base on the photo display:

Here's a photo of the crackle finish on a couple of the wood scraps...I just love how amazingly simple this technique is and how fantastic the results are!

Now to decorate and assemble the frame display...

I purchased several little burlap flowers at Hobby Lobby, which just so happened to be on sale for 50% off. I thought they were a pretty good deal at just $1.00 each. I cut the wire stem off of the back. (Don't throw those away yet, though, as you'll see how I used the stems in this project...)

I wrapped and tied some jute twine around the base of each of the painted wood pieces, using a little dab of glue on the backside to keep it in place:

Next up, using some E6000 I attached the burlap flower to one corner and a small, painted clothes pin to the other corner. I set these aside until they were completely dry:

Once the embellishments were completely dry, I laid the painted stir stick at the base of the lined up fence pieces, and marked off with pencil on the stir stick exactly where I wanted each fence piece to go. Using more E6000 on the bottoms of the fence pieces, I attached them to the stir stick and then allowed everything to dry thoroughly. Here's another photo of the finished product:

Oh! I almost forgot! The wire pieces that I cut off of the bottoms of the burlap flowers have now become curly-vine accents to the flowers. I twisted the pieces around a toothpick; then carefully slid them off and used a dot of glue to attach them. I also added some pearl-head corsage pins for a little extra detail.

Here's a photo of the display with pictures of my great niece Kayle and 2 of my great nephews, Jack and Ian. (Aren't they just so cute??)

I then got a little more creative and decided to make a few more of these photo display frames...

This one is for a single photo and uses a little metal clip, instead of a clothes pin, to hold a photo in place. I also added a couple of old wooden spools, buttons and tiny silk flowers as embellishment on the outer edge of a paint stick that was cut in half for the base. (Once again, I used E6000 adhesive to hold everything in place.)

I also made one using a tiny little bird nest with artificial eggs as an embellishment:

I REALLY LOVE how cute these turned out! I've got several more wood scraps from Mike's fence project, so I'll be making some more fun projects like this one, for sure!

Thanks so much for dropping by my blog today to check out what I've been up to. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

Blessings,