Monday 6 October 2014

A little trio of frames.....

Good morning folks.
I trust that you are all well. I've been pretty scarce around the craft world recently having taken time out to spend time with my sister who was visiting from South Africa. We had an amazing time catching up, exploring and picnicking virtually every day. It was a lovely and special time which, sadly, came to an end last week.
 Now the house is strangely quiet as you can imagine...... but now it is time to pick up the craft reins again. Starting with a little trio of frames that I altered for my sister.


We picked up three of these gorgeously detailed frames very inexpensively and I set about changing them.

The first stage was to add a base tone. I used Treasure Gold in a blue tone and applied it directly to the frames with a brush. This is ideal as a base as, being solvent based, it sticks to the frame nicely.

 I worked it into all the crevices but still allowing some of the white to show through.

 For the next stage. I used DecoArt Metallic Lustre in silver and gunmetal to add layers of silver over the surfaces. I worked the lighter colour first, covering all of the surfaces and then adding the darker colour last.
 Finally, to both blend everything together and to seal the frames I poured out Vintaj glaze onto my craft sheet and stippled the glaze over the frames with a brush. It is important to dab rather than brush as the moisture of the glaze will react with the lustres so stippling blends and softens all the colours together to give a lovely subtle finish.


The whole process takes very little time but the end transformation is pretty dramatic I think. I was pleased with them and I think I'll be getting some more.........Great for affordable Christmas gifts I think.
What do you think?

5 comments:

Fiona (anubis 1 ) said...

These turned out great Neil. Lovely end result xxx

Rita said...

Wow Neil. Your frames look fabulous. Thanks for the brilliant How to. Love those frames. Hugs Rita xx

Elaine said...

They now look very expensive - great project!

Sue Marrazzo Fine Art said...

this looks GREAT!!!!!!

Karin said...

This look great Neil, especially when you enlarge the photos that's when you can see all that gorgeous blending of the colours.