Distressed Looking Photo Frames

Yes, I am nesting!  At least, that is what my friends at church said when I told them what I have been up to these past weeks.  But it is true…nesting I am. 🙂 I can feel it.

I never knew I would get to be at this place in life…preparing to be a mom. 🙂

There is so much to do to as we prepare ourselves to foster/adopt-

• Prepare the house
• Get the kiddo’s rooms ready
• Training times
• Prepare our hearts
• Spend time reading books on attachment, trauma, etc.

Yes we are tired, yes it is a lot, but it is all totally worth it!

As I have been working on getting the kiddo’s bedrooms ready, I have been doing a lot of “creating,” which might not surprise you. 😉

I found a whole bunch of inexpensive photo frames like the ones in the picture below either at thrift stores or the dollar store. I really want to make their rooms feel homey. I want them to know that they matter even through doing this small thing. Of course, they may not feel like they matter for a long while. And they may say that they hate their rooms and wish they could go somewhere else. That’s okay. This is all part of the journey of foster/adopting. It is not an easy road. But, in God’s grace, we want to pour love on these children who have already been through so much in their short lives, even if they don’t want it at times.

I sanded them and then painted them by giving them a distressed look. The sanding is what takes the longest, but distressing it is simple! After you have sanded, first paint the frame whatever color you want to show through as the distressed part. It took me 2-3 coats. Once that is dry then take some Vaseline and put a light layer in places where you want it to look worn. Paint your main color over the top. Again, this took 2-3 coats. Use steel wool (I am not a fan of this after using it, but it works), or something like a cheap nail file to scrub around your frame. What you will see happening is that where you put the Vaseline, the top color will come off, leaving the first color. When you are finished use a sealer. I used Mod Podge.

For these, I wanted the main color to be turquoise, so I painted the white on first.

It is okay if some of the original color of the frame comes through…it just adds to the distressed look.

I loved the color of the original frame in this one below, so I skipped the step of putting a base coat. I really wanted the original red color to come through. I love how it came out!

This is a pic of one I made with the reverse coloring. (The room colors are red, white, turquoise, and grey.)

Have any of you tried doing a distressed look on anything that you have painted?