Picture this!

First off, sorry about the mini-hiatus last week. It was unplanned and really just due to me being useless and lazy after dealing with a mini back injury. So, please accept my apology and know that I have been thinking about about some cool projects to tackle soon! Anyway, on with it...

A couple weeks ago we took a trip to Goodwill looking for Halloween costumes and I figured it only made sense to browse through the home good section. I'm glad I did because I found some beautiful picture frames. Well, maybe they weren't beautiful but I figured I could give them a little TLC. As a bonus, red sticker items were half off! Both frames for $5 total?! Yes please! As you can see below, the frames were actually pretty ugly. Mauve colored photo mats are just not my thing. Call me crazy.

I decided to paint the actual framing black. Shocking right??! It was easy. I used my trusty ol' Rustoleum Spray Paint and removed the glass and mat. Then I just went to town! I sprayed a few light coats of paint and left the frames in the garage to dry. Time to work on the mats.

I've never refinished any photos mats before but I've read about a lot of different methods available. I decided to try painting them. This decision was mainly based on already having paint available at home. :) I knew that I wanted to put the frames in the guest room so I went with a wine colored craft paint. To apply the paint I just used a piece of sponge and lightly spread two coats over the frame.

I LOVE the way the mats turned out. It's hard to tell in the photos but in real life they look suede like. Super classy! Now I had to decide what to put inside the frames. We already have quite a few personal photos in our guest room so I thought that adding a couple of 8x10 pictures might just push it over the creepy edge. I ended up enlarging a couple of note cards that I had. I went to good ol' Target to scan and enlarge the note card. They turned out pretty good!

After finishing the pictures I came home to assemble the finished product. I gathered all the pieces up (I tend to leave things all over the house when I'm working) and got to work. Ta-da!

I haven't decided where to hang them in the room yet because I have a couple other things I want to work on in that space. But here's a picture of the frames with the bedding.

I think they're going to look great in there! So that's my adventure in picture frame and mat painting. Has anyone else painted photo mats before? Any other method for refinishing frames? I'm obsessed with pictures so I'd love to hear any fun ideas!