Personalizing My Picture Frames

Posted on by vpdairies

The walls in my apartment are really bare. I mean I have a clock with a couple of elephant heads and a mirror. All on institutional off-white walls. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I’ve bought a few things to put on the walls but just haven’t gotten around to them up. I think I got caught in trying to make sure everything was going to be perfect before moving forward. And ended up never moving at all. Plus, I’m a procrastinator. I mean, I could win a gold medal in procrastination. One of my favorite movie lines is from Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O’Hara saying, “I’ll think about it tomorrow.” I can definitely get onboard with that. I’ve tried to find a way to stop procrastinating but I keep putting that off. I see a trend here….sigh

Well, something happened that, at least with this project, has made me decide to get my tush moving and get things up on the walls. My mom came for a visit around Thanksgiving and brought two very cool things for me. The first is my original birth certificate. I mean this is the one signed by the hospital when I was born too many moons ago. The other is a picture of me from the front page of the Columbus Dispatch, also many moons ago. Being on the front page of our largest newspaper (we actually had two at that time) was my 15-minutes of fame.

The first thing I started looking for was some picture frames I really liked. That is so much harder than you would think it would be. I mean, there always seems to be so many options. Who knew it would be so hard to find picture frames but nothing was what I liked or was willing to settle for. First, since I’m going mid-century modern, I needed something with clean lines. When I could find something with clean lines, it didn’t come in a color I liked. I mean, I dislike black a lot, which is the predominant color. I don’t like silver or platinum either. I am much more of an earth tone type of girl. I love browns, ivory, gold, bronze, orange, all those earthy tones. I needed something with more color and substance. I kept looking and looking and looking. I couldn’t find anything I really liked. I was really afraid my procrastination habit would kick in and I’d remember to start looking for pictures frames again sometime next year. I kept my motivation going to find the perfect picture frames. I considered this a major accomplishment.

I kept returning to this one set of seven frames I found on Amazon. They had the clean lines I was looking for, a variety of sizes for different uses, and, most importantly, a price tag I could afford. The only problem was they only came in silver. Why couldn’t they come in wood, matte gold, bronze? Anything but silver!! What is the solution? Rust-oleum, of course. I purchased a can of Hammered Copper Rust-oleum so I could make my picture frames a color I liked instead of settling for a color I don’t like. And they will go with the raised copper pipe plant stand, copper legged plant stand, and the copper pipe and leather wine rack that are on my To Do list.

With living in an apartment, spray painting the frames has to be done one at a time. I kept the box I used when I updated my cart. I had stored it in my outdoor storage closet because I just knew it would come in handy later. This can make the project drag out but it keeps management from yelling at me for tie-dying the porch.

I got notification from Amazon that my frames had been delivered but the paint wasn’t coming until the next day. I live at the back of my apartment complex, while the office and the mailboxes are at the front. It is part of my routine to take my dog for a walk up to the office to pick up the mail. This way we both get out in the fresh air and get some exercise. When I know I have packages, I carry a reusable bag I got from JoAnn Fabrics. After getting the mail from the mailbox, I went to the office to get my package. I walked in and immediately saw my box…and immediately knew there was no way that box was going to fit in the bag. The office manager suggested I open the box there and hopefully whatever was inside was small enough to fit in my bag. Sure enough, the Amazon box was much bigger than the box inside.

After unpacking the frames, I decided that the 17” frame would be the first one I would paint. That would be the one for my birth certificate. I ripped off the plastic, turned it over, and saw all the pieces I needed to remove to get the glass out. The corner pieces weren’t difficult to remove but the other ones…now those were a pain. A couple of them came out fairly easily, but the rest were a chore.

I eventually got them all out and removed the cardboard, the really bad picture, and the matting. However, I found that the glass was glued in using rubber cement. I couldn’t get it out. That put an end to the idea to take it out before spray painting it. So, now I needed to come up with a backup plan. Simple, cover the glass with paper.

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I then got out my box and risers from my previous spray painting projects. I only had 4 risers left so I could only spray paint one frame at a time. I am concerned about this because, with the delays, it is very possible my procrastination gene could kick in and I’ll finish painting these next year (if ever). It took a couple of coats but it ended up looking exactly like what I was looking for.

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I love the way my birth certificate looks in the frame. However, as I was admiring my handy work, I noticed a little bit of paint on the glass. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get if off. Then I thought about the disposable razors I had. I got one and hit it with a hammer. The razor was very tiny but I could hold it without cutting myself, and it was bendable too. And it worked. I was able to scrap all the paint off. However, when I was putting everything back together, I noticed there seemed to be a fine film of paint on the inside of the glass. Well crap! I couldn’t take off that with my little razor blade. I went and got my nail polish remover. I ran a cotton ball of remover all over the inside of the glass and the film was gone. Then I spent even more time cleaning the glass to remove any trace of the acetone.

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And there it is!

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The next frame I painted was the one I planned on putting the newspaper picture in. Luckily the smaller frames didn’t have as many things on the back as the big one did. They only had braces on the corners. So much easier to get them out. And the glass came out of frame. But for some reason, it didn’t dawn on me that I could leave the glass out when I painted them. I just covered the glass with paper and painters tape, put it back in, and then put the ‘fake’ picture back in to protect the back of the glass. I really think I just made my life harder than it needed to be.

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Going in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to use the matting so I needed to find something to go behind the picture to frame it out. I remember I had a bunch of scrapbooking paper and really hoped I could find something that looked mid-century modern in the packet. I came up with a few alternatives. The first options had orange in them and seemed to have that mid-century vibe. The second option were my teal options. I laid the picture on each of the options to help make my decision.

I ended up with the second of the orange options.

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I’m still working on the other frames. I’m not sure where I’ll put them all but I have found a location for my birth certificate and my newspaper clippings.

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Mid-Century Modern Redesign

Posted on by vpdairies

Mid-century modern (MCM) is my favorite style of décor. That era is known for the clean lines of the furniture, the colors, the atomic bursts. I love the

I am slowly replacing all my furniture and decor with mid-century modern MCM or MCM inspired pieces. The very first thing I purchased was a dresser and mirror to use as my TV stand. I love the look of the dresser and it works great as my TV stand. Well, it worked better before I bought my new 43” TV. Now there isn’t much space left over on the sides to hold he DVR and internet router. I’m already working on the plans for my new entertainment center, which I’m going to build myself.

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And I hung the mirror on the wall. It looks pretty good too. My wall doesn’t look quite so bare now. See the updates in Personalizing My Picture Frames.

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The next thing I bought was a multi-colored ball clock. This isn’t the clock I want for the long haul but it is cute and runs well. I really want one of the wooden atomic clocks but this one will work for the time being. I bought it off Amazon and put it together myself. I think it’s cute.

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I have also purchase a number of little knickknacks off ebay to place around the apartment. One of the first purchases was a pretty little orange ashtray. When my daughter saw it, her comment was “Why do you have an ashtray?” My answer? Buying an MCM ashtray is cheaper than purchasing an MCM bowl and I just needed something small to put change and my keys in. I also have my Aladdin teapot from the Hall China Company, my Drip-o-lator coffee pot also from the Hall China Company, and a cool looking vase. I really love stuff from the Hall China Company and have a lot more in storage back in Columbus. I got the vase because I have a matching tea…in storage in Columbus. I really need to get my stuff out here to Tucson. I’ve also made a number of purchases as I went Thrifting .

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A major purchase I’m really enjoying is my new couch and chair. I finally had to break down and replace the old stuff I’d been using for the last few years. I wanted grown-up furniture. I measured the long wall in the apartment so I would know exactly how long a couch would fit comfortably, while leaving room by the front door. Over to Sam Levitz I went with my daughter. Bronwyn doesn’t like MCM at all but I knew she would keep me from spending too much. I found this really nice set on sale that would fit in my apartment without making the room look super small and cramped. I wish it had come in a color other than grey but I can live with the color because I really like the MCM shape, while being new construction. It came with two of the grey and white pillows. I’ve since purchased additional MCM inspired pillows.

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I also found a really cool MCM coat rack that is a knock-off of the Eames Hang-It-All. You can read about why I decided on the coat rack I purchased and how I ended up hanging it in MCM Coat Rack.

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Cart Update, Part 2

Posted on by vpdairies

My honorary grandkids came over today since school was closed for a long weekend. (Don’t get me going on how they don’t fund the schools here so kids are out all the freaking time so they can reduce costs.) Any way, the boys and I had a good time. We talked about what they wanted for Christmas (which is a ways out still), watered the plants, and they played Minecraft for hours and hours because I was working.

After I had finished working for the day, Junior asked if we could paint the cart. We decided to go for it. While he continued to play Minecraft, I started prepping the cart for paint. First, I gathered everything I thought I would need: sandpaper blocks, Goo Gone, paper towels, cleaners, and a screwdriver. I started just cleaning the whole thing since it has been sitting around for a while. It was a little dusty and had some dog hair on it. I keep telling Cian that he needs to keep his hair to himself, he is causing Mommy a lot of work but he just doesn’t seem to understand that concept.

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After cleaning, I went to work on a couple of places that had stickers or tape. The first place was just one of those stickers you get on your banana or pepper. I tried using the sandpaper on it but that didn’t work very well. Then I tried using the Goo Gone but that did absolutely nothing. So I finally decided to just use the good ole’ screwdriver and scrap it off. That worked really well on the paper portion of the sticker. And the Goo Gone worked really well on the glue. One sticky place down, one to go.

The second part was on the handle where they decided to use a bazillion yards of tape to keep the price tag on. I mean, they just wrapped and wrapped that tape around the handle. So first I had to figure out where the tape started and ended to see if I could start there to unwrap it. That didn’t work…they’d wrapped it back on itself. I finally found a little pucker on one end of the tape. I got out my trusty screwdriver and went to work. It took a little while but I finally got the tape and price tag off. Used a little more Goo Gone and, Woo Hoo, I was ready for the next step in getting the cart ready to redo.

That is also where I ran into a major stumbling block. With my screwdriver in hand, I started to unscrew the handles from the trays. HUH! Nope, that wasn’t happening. Those screws were NOT going to budge. They didn’t care that I was ready to work. They didn’t care that I wasn’t going to throw them away but put the whole thing back together again once I finished painting everything. They just plain didn’t care. Markus decided that he would try, because being a 7-year old, he believes he is strong enough to take on anything. Huh, again nope. Junior took a break from playing Minecraft to give it a try, because being 9 is so much better. We finally just stared at the thing, ready to kick it, when Markus says, “My dad can do it. He is really strong.” That worked for me! Well, when Alfonso got here to pick up the boys, he couldn’t get them undone either. What he did notice is that we needed a wrench or ratchet set to undo the nuts on the back side of the screws. That was what was holding them in so tight. Alfonso said he would come back this weekend with the right tools to help me.

Friday was a vacation day for me so my friend, Sawnya, came over with her son to hang out. Later in the day, her husband showed up and we were talking about the cart. He took a look at it. He agreed that the nuts on the inside needed to be loosened and said he had a ratchet set in his car. He set to work, and in no time at all, my cart was laying on the floor in pieces. Thank you, Nick!

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Looks like I have more cleaning to do because the bottom of those shelves look to be in pretty bad shape!

I waited until the next day but I now have all the shelves and the handles sanded and cleaned up. I’m ready to go. Then I start thinking, “Where am I going to do this?” I mean, I live in an apartment. So, there is no basement to use. I could take it outside but I don’t think the management would appreciate it much it I got paint all over my patio, or their grass or rocks (they use a lot of rocks out here in southern Arizona), regardless that I think Satin Lagoon is really pretty. Maybe I could take it over to my daughter’s place. I know she has a drop cloth I could use in her garage. But that means I won’t be able to start until I can make those arrangements.

Then I see it – that huge box sitting in my living room. I just got a shipment from Amazon of pillow inserts and they came in a great big box. I guess this is one time that be slow to take something out to the dumpster (read as just being lazy about it) is going to pay off for me. I open up that box and use it on my patio. Cian is finding the whole thing fascinating.

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The one thing I bought when I first decided to do this project were these things called Painter’s Pyramid. I was worried about the edges of the shelves looking good.

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And these are doing exactly what I wanted them to do! They keep the shelves up off their edges so I don’t have to worry about the paint making the shelve stick to the box. And they have turned out to be very handy when I turn the shelves over. I don’t have to worry about putting the new paint down on the cardboard. It just sits on those little points.

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Everything seemed to be moving right along. I started painting while participating in my favorite Saturday habit, watching college football. And that worked out great b because I needed to wait at least an hour before putting on a second coat. So, I’d put on the first coat during the pre-game yakking, then a halftime I would put on the second coat. And when the game was over, I could turn the shelf over and spray the bottom. I decided to only use one coat on the bottom, because it was the bottom. It didn’t need to be perfect like the top. I still made sure everything was covered nicely but one coat was enough.

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Since I could only do one shelf at a time, it took most of the day to do two of them. Which is when I noticed another little problem. I really thought that one can of spray paint would be enough. As I was shaking it after doing the bottom of the second shelf, I noticed there didn’t seem to be too much paint left in the can. Definitely not enough for the last shelf. Well, just fudge!!!

In order not to waste time, I decided to do the handles. I stood the box up against the patio wall and balanced the handle inside there. This turned out to be the perfect solution. I could only do one handle at a time and just had time to do one handle before it got too late. It did take two coats on both sides of the handle to make it look really nice. And now the inside of the box reminds me of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz.

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For the night, I didn’t want to stack them up because they hadn’t had the time for the paint to really set. I was really afraid that leaning them up against each other would cause them to stick together. I ended up balancing the two shelves on the corners of the patio wall and left the handle in the box so they had a nice curing time.

I’m still waiting to get a new can of Satin Lagoon so I can finish painting the shelves. But in the meantime, I was thinking about how good it was going to look when I got it all back together again. And it hit me. What in the world did the screws look like? I mean, the shelves and handles both had rust and scrapes on them, chances are the screws were too. The screws and nuts were in a baggie on the counter so I took a look. Sure enough, they looked very sad… I needed to find a box or other piece of cardboard I could put the screws in so they would stay stand up. Don’t they look gorgeous now?

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I got another can of the Satin Lagoon and finished painting the trays. Now the cart is ready to be put back together!

It took a while but I finally got my friend, Nick, to come back with his tools and put my cart back together. I just absolutely LOVE it. It is everything I envisioned it would be.

Cart Update

Posted on by vpdairies

I really, really, really needed to update the look of my apartment. I had a bunch of older, mismatched stuff. It definitely did not look the apartment of a grown up.

As I started looking around, I realized that with apartment living you really shouldn’t have a lot of heavy furniture. From being in other people’s apartments who had big, bulky, poufy furniture, the place just looked smaller and more crowded. So, for the average size apartment (and depending on the layout), you need to limit what size, bulk, and amount of your furniture and accessories.

After looking at a lot of pictures online, I decided I love Mid-Century Modern. I love the colors. I love the lines of the furniture. And in an apartment, it provides a cleaner, more spacious look. So, I started looking for pieces and discovered it can be really expensive. I mean, really expensive! There was no way I was going to be able to afford to buy mid-century modern furniture.

I needed to change my way of thinking and find other ways to find the mid-century modern furniture I wanted, while not busting my paycheck. The answer? Thrift stores, craigslist, garage sales, and lots of elbow grease.

So, I started looking at craigslist almost every day. Very often I would find something I liked…usually when I didn’t have any money or it was still out of my price range. And if I had the money, I’d contact the person and it would already be gone.

I also started haunting thrift stores, especially Goodwill and the Salvation Army. I’m always reading these online stories about how amazing it is what people give away. To hear them talk about it, they are always finding some rare piece of art or whatever. Can I just say, I have not had that kind of luck. I have found a few things that will go well in a mid-century modern décor. Candlesticks. A plate. (Not much, huh?)

I did find one item that I’m really excited about. I found it at a thrift store run by a church. It was a really nice place, everything was organized and clean. That’s where I found the plate. I also found some wine glasses for $1 or less. The wine glasses aren’t necessarily mid-century modern but they are big and that is the most important thing when picking out wine glasses. But the thing I found that really excited me is a cart. It will look absolutely perfect on my patio.

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It is pretty cool. And you wouldn’t believe what it cost?!? Yes, that’s right, just $7.50.

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Now, admittedly it needs some work but isn’t that what Rust-Oleum is for? So, my next stop was Home Depot to look at spray point. Man, there are a lot of colors. I ended up going with Satin Lagoon for the shelves and Metallic Silver for the handles. I’m not sure that the Satin Lagoon is really a mid-century modern color but I like it and think it will look fantastic. I’m not sold on the Metallic Silver, which is really just chrome, but it was the only type of silver at the store. I’m going to go ahead and use it…and if I don’t like it, I’ll just buy another shade of silver, hopefully there will be something else in stock by then or at a different store.


So, it looks like I’m all ready to get going on my little project.

Check out Card Redo, Part 2 to see how that goes.