A Craft A Week: Week 7 - Framing

It's Friday and I fully intended to write this and send it Monday morning.  What happened?  Work happened.  What a busy week.  My craft challenge was to tackle many of the empty frames around the house, the favorite photos I've always wanted to print, the artwork I've owned and never hung, blah, blah, blippity blah.

So I had gathered up all the frames, pictures, artwork, etc. to work on.  It sure did make a mess of my guest room.  I made a list of what I had with measurements and a list of what I needed.  On Wednesday, I went to Michael's with my 40% off one item coupon and LUCKY ME! they were also having a BOGO on frames sale!  I bought a few frames and headed home.

Thursday night I framed the Fingerprint artwork from my wedding.  Obviously this is a special piece, but it is even "specialer" because my Dad painted it!  At my wedding the guests pressed their thumbprints in to each flower petal and then signed their names.  It's been in my closet ever since, but now it's finally framed!  It still isn't hung because I need help from Hubby to make sure I get it straight.  I changed the rotation of the piece from portrait to landscape because if you look at the picture of the unframed piece, the bottom two petals is where Hubby and I placed our prints.  I decided I didn't like how that turned out because once it was all done it looked like Hubby was all alone off to the side and this is supposed to represent our union.  Soooooo, I switched it up a bit.  It didn't exactly work out in the frame.  I am going to just live with it, but maybe I can find a solution: problem is that the matting is just a hair too short on the sides; tape? another small matting to hide it?

The next piece I framed was artwork I bought on Etsy from Petek Design.  I bought it back in 2011 before the wedding because I loved it, but I thought maybe it would be a cute wedding gift for Hubby (and me).  For whatever reason I didn't give it to him, I think because I didn't want him to hate it.  He never even laid eyes on it until the other day when I framed it, hung it, and he LOVED it!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/petekdesign

Not the best photo, but here it is hung over our bed :)

The next few pieces were fun-for-the-kids pieces.  One was a circle painting me, Chase, and Blake painted one day at some kids birthday party.  Same thing, I had hung on to it for 2+ years because it turned out so cool, but then I shoved it away in my closet.  The other two are caricature drawings of the kids and one of me from eons ago.  Hubby is not a fan of caricature drawings but for the time being I like how it adds interest to our hallway.

On Friday I intended to print a lot of pictures for all my frames, but it didn't happen (darn work).  I was able to print one of Hubby and Reed fishing to put in the puzzle-picture-frame Reed made for his Daddy for Fathers Day last year and has been sitting in a drawer since.

I was only able to print one other picture - Reed holding a Lady Beetle - that I had plans to fill in my photo collage frame jewelry box case with Reed's Lady Beetle artwork and other Lady Beetles.  I downloaded an AP on my iPad called PopAGraph that allowed me to use my photos and pop out a specific color and make the rest of the photo B&W.  Cute!  I didn't get around to printing enough pictures though and my collage frame looks pretty silly right now, it needs a lot more work... a lot!

 

Saturday the family packed up and drove to San Francisco for the weekend to visit Hubby's folks.  I really wanted to bring my drift wood frame craft idea, but I didn't have time to get it together before we had to leave.  Later that night the kids, Grandma Gumi and I were hanging out and I had the idea to play with origami paper!  We made frogs and butterflies and throwing stars and Gumi made a Japanese Samurai helmet; the boys made paper airplanes; and I made... a picture frame!

I got the idea from PINTEREST! (Duh!)  Here is a link to the instructions if you ever want to check it out: http://diy-projectss.blogspot.com/2013/10/paper-flower-picture-frame.html?m=1.  Blake tried making one along with me, but to be honest... we both got really confused a few times.  Oh well, it's neat.

So that wraps up my Week of Framing.  I will hopefully continue to get the photos printed and the kids crafts framed because I really want my house exploding with my favorite memories and artwork of all kinds.

Next Week (which is right now and almost over) I will be working on T-Shirt Refashions.  Our family is participating in a fun run called the Donut Dash and I want to make the non-flattering race t-shirt fun to wear.  I think I will probably cut the neck to be off the shoulder and cut the bottom hem off.  I might work on some other shirts over the weekend too because I have so many ideas!  If you have a Pinterest account you can check out my board of shirt refashions to get some ideas of what I want to do.

Please post some comments, I made it easier to leave them, you don't need to join or whatever.  I'd love to hear from you, hear about your crafts or see some pictures of what you are doing.  Chat with you in a few days!