picture frames

MODERN BOTANICAL DIY PRINTS

Decorating, DIY, Graphics, Paper Art

EASY DIY BOTANICAL PRINTS WITH A TWIST

This is a simple way to create your own botanical prints with a contemporary twist.  This weekend I picked up two very nice simple black chunky frames on offer for 2 for £10 at Homebase, with mounts inside already cut to fit A4 prints.  I then made the prints myself at home, using downloaded botanical and paper images, normal photocopier paper and a printer.  I have seen examples like this on sale for a lot of money in smart home decor shops, galleries and on Etsy, but you can make them yourself which is far more satisfying and far cheaper.

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HOW TO MAKE THEM:

Start off by finding large sized botanical prints on-line.  There are lots of places to find them for free:  The Graphics Fairy and Botanicus are great paces to browse, especially the latter for thousands of botanical themes.  Download the picture you want to use, in Botanicus it comes as a large pdf of a botanical collection of the book’s plates, whereas at The Graphics Fairy is it just one image as a pdf or jpeg.  You do not need to print them out, but the below are examples of ones to look for, they need strong colours and lines to show up in the finished piece.

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Enclosed here is a ready to print dictionary piece of paper, (but you could use old sheet music cut to A4 size, or other old text paper you may have available).  Print this out in colour onto a piece of A4 paper, and make it fit the whole page as much as possible on your printer by using the ‘scale to fit’ option..

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When it is dry, reload this printed paper into the printer, and then print out the botanical flower of your choice straight onto it.  You may need 2-3 runs to get your grade right for your own tastes, (and not to do it upside down which I am guilty of a lot!). You can tweak your grade in your photo browser directly if it is a jpeg, or if it is a pdf you will need to convert it to a large sized jpeg first.

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Then frame up your print, and hey presto… done in a jiffy….

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Have a go, it is really not that hard to do and the possibilities are endless for printing images.  Just make sure they are dense in colour and line.  You can even do a 3rd print run with text on to personalise it for someone.

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Geriatric picture frame makeover…

Craft, DIY, Makeover, Upcycling

The Husband likes to attend car boot sales…  Bit too early for my own tastes, although he does bring home some nice old saws for me to upcyle now that he is trained… and I get a lie-in, a wake up coffee and the Sunday papers along with his latest proffering at a civilized hour too, so all is well.

However, yesterday he appeared with some HIDEOUS pictures!!!!!  They are nautical oil paintings in gnarly frames, but a bargain at £1 each.  He was very pleased with his purchase, and wants them up in the house somewhere, (not that we have much wall space going, and they are not really going to sit alongside the Tracey Emin or Julyan Davis pictures that well…).

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So an upcycle was in order after a lengthy discussion that went somewhere along the lines of:

HUSBAND:  “Look!  These are quality!  They will look great hung up, I love them…”

WIFE:  “Over my dead body matey…”

And so on and so on.  We needed to reach some sort of compromise so I decided to at least have a go at making them look better.

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The actual oil paintings are not too bad when out of the frames so I tried to find paint for the existing frames to bring out the colours in the scenes.  I found some duck egg blue and taupe chalk paint in a cupboard, (yes, it’s an Annie Sloane moment again), to compliment the tones in the oils, then applied two different shades of wax to tone down the colours, and actually they now look much better.  It took all of an hour, and equilibrium now applies to marital bliss.

Instructions:

1.  Remove oils from frames

2.  Sand down frames if they have any lacquer on (the inner frames did on these ones)

3.  Apply a couple of coats of Chalk Paint (although I think any paint will suffice), and find colours to bring out the tones of the painting as well as to compliment your decor scheme.

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4.  When the paint is dry, first apply a coat of clear wax.  Then add a smidgeon of darker wax straight away and blend in to create an overall darker tone/patina.  Don’t overload the rag or it will end up looking very french shabby chic as the dark wax will get stuck in any crevices.

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5.  Buff to a soft sheen.  Replace pictures in the frames and stand back to admire your amazing handiwork!

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