Nursery D I Y - frame project

Our New York City apartment was a sprawling 550 square feet, and originally we had plans for Baby Williamson to sleep in a drawer. (Just kidding. Kind of.) Then when I was eight months pregnant (side note: I'm sure you're thinking what a blast! it sounds like to move in your third trimester of pregnancy but I do not recommend schlepping all your worldly belongings 700 miles when you are eight months pregnant. You should have your feet propped up with a big glass of lemonade at this juncture.) and we relocated to our cute little Lexington house, we suddenly had triple the space to fill (and only about a month until baby was due to arrive). I needed to frame lots of things on the cheap, but wanted a custom look. I had purchased these fabulous vintage fairy tale prints from Etsy and wanted oversized gold frames to show them off. I stalked several second hand and vintage home decorating stores in town that I knew had framed art until I found large ones that would fit my fairy tale prints. I wasn't too concerned that they all matched or were exactly the same size because I planned on getting mats cut for all of them in the same color, which I hoped would give them a cohesive look.

 Here are my frames before (with funny art that was in them when purchased):

With some patience I scored all these frames for 40 bucks! I then got navy mats cut at a local framer for another $40. (I would not recommend Michael's, who mysteriously seem to always be advertising a frame sale with promises of big discounts, yet wanted to charge close to $100 just to have mats cut, and said it would take two weeks! To quote Coffee Talk from 90's SNL days this is neither a sale or a big discount. Discuss.) My local framer literally had them ready in less than an hour, and as an extra bonus I felt warm and tingly about supporting a small business. Made me wonder why I had given shady Michael's (as I shall call them from this day forward) any of my framing business in the first place.

Here are the frames after (with new art and mats cut):

The top left frame originally had a funky greenish marbleized pattern going on, but I got the Krylon gold leaf pen and had way too much fun scribbling in all the space. I was really happy with the end result. All in all I spent $90 for all four frames, mats, and the pen, and I think they turned out ravishing, and looking like they cost quite a bit more. Stay tuned for more nursery D I Y's and a nursery reveal in a few weeks!