Jonathan . Mallory . Duke . Calvin

Its our life, and we love it.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Faux Frame

I'll admit. I've circled everything in the Pottery Barn catalog. Yep everything. I should actually just forward the entire thing to Santa. I want it all. I want it all. And I want it now Christmas.

But, we all know that is not going to happen. Santa, don't think I'm greedy. I just am sending you the catalog for ideas. But don't worry about this. I've already got this under control.


You may be wondering, did she really spend $199.00 on that Gilt Frame Card Holder? Frugal Mallory? Cheap Cheap Birdy? Well, I did not. Instead, I saw this and took inspiration.

You see, that is the secret of my projects. Most of the time, I get inspiration. Sometimes (as in this case) I see something and think "I can do that." Call it HSE. Call it crafty. Call it straight up copying. Call it whatever you want. But whatever you call it... this is what it gets you.



I found this very large frame at the local thrift store for $7.75. It was too expensive. But a week later, my friend Jill was back at said thrift store, and it was 75% off. So she bought it for me, so I could be "Mallory-crafty" (a new adjective coined by Jillian). So all in all, this project was free to me. (Unless you count the bag of mint and dark chocolate chips I bought Jill as a thank you.)

Lets just see what this thing looked like before I got my hands on it.


And although the cross stitched flower arrangement was beautiful, it was very dirty, did not fit in with the decor over here, and well... you know. Not exactly my taste. So I changed it. Simple project, one of my many on Sunday. Here are the instructions:

1. Find large frame.
2. Take picture/cross stitch/glass out of frame and dispose of.
3. Measure width of frame and add 2 inches.
4. Cut twine to this length.
5. Using a staple gun, measure evenly (you'll want to do a little math before you start... consider how many pieces of twine you want and how far apart you want them) down the frame and staple twine to inside back of frame. Make sure twine is taut.
6. Hang Christmas cards that your friends and family send you (hint, hint).

So, what do you think? I find myself longing for many things in the beloved Pottery Barn catalogs. In fact, I look through my Pottery Barn catalogs more often than some of the magazines I actually subscribe to. Shocking, I'm sure. Perhaps Pottery Barn can be thanked for being my inspiration to DIY. For as long as they keep their prices up, I will continue to create knock off pieces. Do you do this? Covet Pottery Barn? Or perhaps it is another store. (Anthropologie is my other one.) Does this drive you to DIY? Or do you just cave and spend the money?


3 comments:

AJD ∞ said...

Genius. If I buy you something I expect mint and dark chocolate chips. WOO.

Mallory said...

Thank you. And that is a fair expectation.

Unknown said...

Mal, that's such a good idea! I've been trying to think of ways to make oil paintings cheaper for me to buy and decorate our apartment with. I've come up with this idea: find wonderful painting and take a picture of it, purchase piece of inexpensive canvas, attempt to recreate painting as best as possible. Hahaha, it's the best I can do on a small budget :)

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