i'm not fond of exercising . . . and quite frankly, i'm a little leery of people who say they are! last year, i was determined to shed some extra pounds so i would get up early each morning and walk the neighborhood in westwood. i actually enjoyed the time to myself but especially loved mondays when people would discard potential treasures to the curb for trash day.
one morning i spotted some old windows propped up against a tree just waiting for the garbage collectors. i couldn't believe that these hadn't already been picked up by the local pickers! lucky me, these were only two houses down from where my parents live, so i could easily stash them to bring home later.
i've held onto these for well over a year now before finally bringing them to our home in florida and converting them to frames. here are a few pictures of the transformation.
i started by putting painters tape on the windows to eliminate additional paint to scrape off the glass.
then i painted the frames. i chose to not sand first since i wasn't sure if the original paint was lead based or not. i just intend to make sure my kids don't chew on them! :S i used the same paint from my jewelry holder project.
i don't have a picture of these next steps, so i'll just describe what i did.
i had silhouettes of my family from previous artwork (thank to my bestie who made them for me!) so i just traced them onto black cardstock and cut them out with a pair of fine paper cutting scissors. i splurged and bought a pair of these since i know i will use them again and again.
then i measured out white poster board and cut it to fit the inside of the glass frame.
after this i covered the board with fabric and taped it down on all sides.
i then taped the silhouettes onto the right side of the board.
finally, i used painters tape to hold it all together on the back of the frame.
check out the close ups first and then scroll down for the finished project. oh, and please excuse the glare . . . photographing these was a real pain in the glass! (sorry, couldn't help myself.)
finished! easy peasy and super cheapy!
Project Cost Breakdown . . .
old windows = $0
black cardstock = $0.50
white poster board = $2.40 ($.80 each for three)
scissors = $7
fabric = $8
hanging hooks = $1.50
Grand Total = $19.40! (sigh. i guess i could have saved even more money by using leftover fabric i already had on hand . . . but spending less than $20 isn't bad!)
