Fabulous Frame Facelift with Bold Chalkpaint Colors

Do you remember these?

I do recall saying that painting these fabulous frames would only
be gilding the lily. Well, after many hearts on the Etsy listing, but no buyers, I revisited the notion of painting them. I decided the white frames
weren't enhancing the prints,
so I said what the hell.....
I'm so glad I did!Voila!

I didn’t want to create too much work for myself, so I had to do this carefully. You see, I wanted all those gorgeous ridges to be a different color than the grooves, to really make them stand out.


So first things first. I painted the whole frame, front and back, with red chalk paint. Now here comes the careful part. Using my handy dandy fan-shaped artist brush (a stiff bristle kind), I dipped the edges in a pale Spring green chalk paint, then off-loaded most of the paint onto a paper towel. Then I gently swept the bristle tips up and down the ridges (inner frame edge to outer edge, and vice versa). It is important to run the brush this way, like sweeping straight down a staircase, to prevent the bristles from brushing paint into the grooves. You can always go back with a very fine brush to touch up any groove messes, but I tried my best
to avoid that, and yes,
it worked like a charm!

I had considered stopping there, save for waxing them, but after testing the outer edge with warm black, I just couldn’t help myself. The black really brought it all together, bringing out the dark background of the prints, and the contrast is so lush and bold. I just love it.

I finished with clear wax, then added dark wax to the inner red border and back, just to make the red richer.
And Oh, aren’t they purty!


I have visions of these in a richly-colored powder room, where the space is small enough to make these a focal point, and not much to compete with. My other vision is these hanging in close proximity to some dramatic vintage barkcloth.


I guess this proves that adding 3 colors wasn’t gilding the lily after all. They look like they were meant to be
this way all along. My next post I’ll be showing you the birdcage I just finished painting,
again with chalk paint. Tata for now….. Maria
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