Window Art Displays

Earlier this summer, I found an amazing woman who was moving and had to sell all of the window frames she had collected over the years.  She used to have a photography business and LOVED to use old window frames as picture frames.  She sold 8 of her treasures to me for $80 with the promise that I would find a way to pay it forward.  I have since found the time to re-finish 5 of the frames. 

In the process of refinishing these frames, I found out a few valuable lessons.  The first being that there is a reason that all of those old frames are sold "as is" for that neat vintage look.  The reason for that is that many of those frames are covered with lead paint.  And let me tell you, lead paint is something you should never mess with.  And it has a staying power that is hard to out-stubborn.  It took me almost 20 hours to remove the lead paint using a special remover that by hubby found for me.  To put this into perspective, it took 3 hours to remove the stain from the other side.

The second thing I learned was that no matter how much you think you have taken all previous colour out of the wood, use a wood sealing primer anyways.  It would have saved me at least 5 coats of paint if I had started that way.

The third thing was tenacity.  At any point, I could have easily given up on my project.  I spent 23 hours on the windows just removing the old colour.  This doesn't count for the all hours I spent adding my own colours.  But it was a lesson I was willing to learn, because now my kids have a pretty cool place to display their works of art.

 

The kids got to decorate their own clothespins.

 

 

And here is the one for me: