Game-changing framing hacks for thrifted frames!

this video is sponsored by betterhelp hey everyone welcome back to reissued if you're new here my name is Andrew and I have a problem well two problems first I a bit of an art collector slart orderer and I have way too much art around my house that often needs to be reframed and two I'm finding framing to be increasingly difficult it either feels really junky or it's complicated or it's expensive and so in this video I'm going to be pulling out a bunch of art that I collected that I thrifted and I'm going to be reframing those in thrifted frames and I'm going to show you my tips and techniques for getting an expensive High look with minimal cost can't wait to get started let's Jump On In so as I mentioned I have a ton of artwork in my house I love the really like eclectic and cultured and personal look that art can give to a space I'm running out of wall space but that's a different problem for a different day I also am a bit of a hoarder when it comes to thrifting frames anytime that I see a great frame at the thrift store I go ahead and pick it up you never know when you're going to need a specific size frame for a certain art piece or a specific area in your house and so I'd rather just have a lot of things on hand to choose from and I'm glad that we're going to be getting some use out of those today I used to frame a lot of my artwork with sort of off the rack framing from Michaels or Ikea those kind of like black or white melamine frames super simple I still like that look and I have a couple of those around my house I think they work fine however I'm finding that one they're not very durable I've had to replace several of them over time because they just either chip away or pull apart or crack that also used to feel like a really affordable option but now it feels like the prices of those are kind of creeping up up and then also as I acquire more vintage and high quality and antique pieces in my house somehow it feels like the simple melamine frames don't really syn up with that so I'm wanting to get a little bit more of an Eclectic vintage look in the frames as well and so thrifted frames have been a great way to get that for a couple of my very favorite or most unusual shaped art pieces I have had them custom framed at Michaels I think that can be worth it if it's a piece that you really love or is really personal to you however that does get expensive so I'm certainly not going to do that for all of my pieces So today we're pulling out the thrifted frame we're reframing we're refinishing the frames where they were damaged we're going to be doing some painting on the mats covering the mats with fabric just a lot of different techniques here to try to make the thrifted frames work for these pieces even though all the hacks in this video are going to be super simple and DIY friendly I was rushing to get all these products done before I went on my trip to Italy and so this whole video was a bit of a reminder that as much joy as the DIY life brings me the stress is real from balancing multiple projects at once to spending countless boring hours editing each video to being right in the middle of a project and feel like everything is going wrong there was so much of that for this project I constantly feel overwhelmed so I started prioritizing my mental health with better help which is the sponsor of today's video better help has been an amazing tool for me to assist with managing stress and maintaining the confidence and positive mindset to see things through even when the projects life changes and day-to-day thought patterns get tough after answering just a few questions better help matches you with the licensed therapist who is trained to listen and offer helpful unbiased advice finding the right therapist is one of the most important and most daunting parts of therapy and with better help you can switch therapists at any time it took me a couple tries until I found the right fit for me better help gives you the option for sessions with your therapist via phone call video call or messaging all right from your phone or computer to get started with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com reissued or choose reissued at signup to get a discount off your first month okay project time let me lay out everything that we're going to be working with and I'll show you the problems before we can start with the solutions starting here I have this piece from my friend Jenny horn she's a local artist here in N Georgia this is from a show that she did at the Boyd Gallery almost 2 years ago and this has been sitting unframed undisplayed in my house I would love to pop her into this Frame right here that I got at the restore for $3 hoping that it fits perfectly and we won't have any issues there but we'll see next up I have this Botanical print that I got at the restore this week for $3 I like this kind of vintage scientific drawing kind of feel the mat is in kind of rough shape and it's a color that I don't particularly like so we're going to need to address that I think it would look really nice in this Frame right here that I got at the restore for $5 I like this kind of olive green velvet around the edges has these kind of gold plasticky pieces here and then it's missing one of those at the bottom so we're going to have to get creative in addressing that this is the piece that I purchased at the brown elephant in Chicago I think this is an original piece really love the way that this looks but the frame is totally busted it's broken on the back and so we're going to need to reframe this entirely I'm thinking that we can keep the mat but I'm I'm not sure that I love the white on white there so we might address that and I think the whole thing would look better in this Frame that I just picked up this morning at Goodwill for $5 love the wood and gold I have several frames like that in my house but this one is pretty damaged there's some kind of goop and some like scratches and issues with that so we might be able to do some repairs on that this is a piece that I picked up at the restore a while ago that's been living on my bedroom fireplace mantel I really like this kind of like vintage landscape look but then with the really strange creature involved this looks really nice in this Frame but you can see right here that there's a gap at the bottom and at the top this was not the original piece for this Frame and it doesn't really fit properly I'm hoping that it will fit better in that frame that I got at the restore and then I have a different plan for something to go in this Frame I picked up this Picasso print at the restore a while back I really like the blue green color palette and the Really sculptural lines not a fan of this light blue matte though it's giving that kind of like 80s baby blue feel I don't think it's doing the piece any favors I also see a little bit of that blue tone on the frame so I might need to knock that out as well the framing job here is good but I think that the mat needs to be addressed and then finally there's this Rothco print that's been hanging in my Atrium for a while I like the color palette in that room I think the frame looks kind of cheap and it's actually broken as well so I'm going to try to switch it over to this metal frame that I thrifted I think at the restore as well well hopefully that'll be a little bit more solid and hopefully that'll be an easy transfer okay so now that we have a rough plan in place let me walk you through what I did to make each of these frames work okay let's start simple and do the basic frame swaps first I would skip over this part entirely Since switching out a frame seems kind of self-explanatory however when you're working with thrifted frames it's likely that you're going to be dissecting a custom frame job which can be a bit more complicated so here are a couple of the types of frames you might encounter first the teap off the rack frames I mentioned most often have modern bendable tabs so I'm folding those up to remove the Rothco print from the cheap broken Hobby Lobby [Music] frame easy the sturdy metal frame that I'm switching over to has to be unscrewed in the corners to allow the art to be removed so I go in with the flaad screwdriver and turn the screws one or two times to loosen the joint and allow the top bottom and sides to separate then I can pull out these little spring clips that hold the art flat against the [Music] glass once I slide the art between the glass and the foam backing I can put the frame back together around the edges tighten the screws and then slide those spring clips back into place one done I'm going to show all the finished pieces in their new frames at the end of the video so stay tuned next let's level up to a more complex three frame I think this piece was a custom frame job for a Hobby Lobby or Kirklands type piece of art but it's already been hacked by another DIY so let's lift off the tape and pull it [Music] apart unfortunately the art is not even close to fitting in the wood frame that I had intended I'm really bad at eyeballing frame sizes apparently so we'll have to get creative with a new solution later on the next piece is another Custom Framing job we can tell since it has a sealed paper back so let's gently cut along the edges with a utility knife to see what's going on under here [Music] looks like we have some little tabs that have been nailed in along the edges they're too stiff to bend so I'm going to pull them out along two sides by wedging my flathead screwdriver underneath just enough to allow me to pull them out with pliers [Music] unfortunately the art is just a touch too small for the frame not enough that we'll notice it but just enough that it will need something to hold it in the center so that it doesn't drop down and leave a gap so I flip over the existing mat to the white side and tape it on using some painters tape made into a loop masking tape or painters tape tends to be kinder on the artwork than clear tape in case I ever want to reframe this [Music] let's pop in the art and push the tabs back into their old holes to hold everything in place then we can tape the paper back on to give the back a better [Music] finish I follow the same process for the large Picasso print only this one has staples instead of tabs so we can them out of the way instead of removing them sounds easier however the glass on this one was taped to the art and the mat so I had to remove it entirely and then when trying to pop it back in the Staples made it really tricky and I gripped too hard on one of the corners and I snapped it right off and crap are you [Music] art are you art I think picked up a piece of replacement glass at Lowe's for $17 I'm really lucky this Frame was a standard size but I think they can do custom cuts as well this time I recruited my parents to help me guide the glass around the Staples and back into place after modifying the mat which I'll show you later we reinsert the art and fold the Staples back [Music] down then tape the paper back in place to finish things off [Music] now let's move on to mats first I thrifted a larger frame for the Renaissance landscape so I need to make a custom mat to make the irregular shape of the artwork work I have some stiff cardboard on hand from the back of this large scale drawing pad that I think will work perfectly after cutting it to fit my 16x 20in frame I carefully measure the size of the art piece and cut a matching hole in the center of my new mat I want the entire piece to show so there won't be any wiggle room for overlap but we'll deal with that later by taping the to a larger piece of paper and Taping that to the mat now let's give our mat some more aesthetic finish and what's the simplest solution for changing the look of a mat paint right since we're putting the Botanical piece in the green velvet and wood frame a simple off-white should work well for that mat one of these Shades from my kitchen or bedroom walls should work I opted for the color match of the shade blanched from Magnolia in an eggshell finish this is the wall color in in my bedroom I found it was best to apply a little paint at a time to try to get a thin and even finish we don't want this to look too Gloppy or brush strokey instead we want to try to maintain the texture of the paper and just alter the shade the paint wanted to dry very quickly so I had to work fast but I was able to achieve a mostly even finish the shiny glass is going to hide any little Sheen issues [Music] I go back in with a tiny brush to get the inner Rim this would have been way easier with the matte separated from the artwork but everything was glued together to the backing so we're just going to go slow and make it [Music] work after two light coats I think it looks pretty good for the other mattes I thought a warm textured look would be better than a flat painted look so let's cover them in fabric I pulled some Fabrics that I had on hand that were very neutral but would be softer and less harsh than white I picked up these rolls of fabric at a restore in North Carolina a while back for $5 each to establish a technique that worked for me I started by referencing a video on DIY fabric mats from Donata Delano I'll link to it down below in case you want to check out her instructions as well she used just double-sided tape for her project and so I purchased some and tried that method to start however I found that it wasn't strong enough to be able to hold my fabric so I experimented with a couple different methods before I found a winner and here's what worked for me first i' stick the fabric down before I cut the center to be sure that things don't move around after I make my Center Cuts I did this with either double-sided tape along the inner edge of the mat or a glue stick all over the mat neither one will be strong enough to hold down the fabric permanently but both adhesives helped hold things in place and kept them from sliding around or wrinkling up then I cut about an inch inside the opening of the mat and make diagonal Cuts right to the corner of the mat to fold the fabric around and hold it in place effectively I pull out the hot glue gun I start in the corners being sure to pull the fabric tightly then I work my way around pulling the fabric tight and pressing down firmly to mold the hot glue into a flat shape before it cools that way everything will sit nice and flat within the frame any little threads that hang around in the corners can be smoothed down with white glue if you're patient or hot glue if you have Steel fingers like me now we can flip the whole thing over and start gluing the other side more permanently the glue stick did a decent job of keeping things evenly fixed so we can just go along the very edge with the hot glue to lock things in keeping the hot glue at the edges in the mat only prevents us from seeing any obvious glue lines across the flat Center areas of the [Music] mat the tape worked better when I applied more pieces in the middle of the front to keep it from lifting away and then I go in around the edges again with hot glue now these are ready to get popped back into their frames but first let's fix up those busted frames for all the wood frames that had signs of damage I hit them with a 150 grit sandpaper to smooth out any areas where the varnish and stain were chipping or dented I try to get a smooth blend between the sanded areas in the original finish ideally you would sand down the whole thing and start from scratch with a new stain application but I want to spend 10 minutes not 2 hours so I'm definitely cutting Corners here [Music] after sanding I go in with a stain I had on hand this one is early American from Minwax to match the original stained shade and try to blend out the sanded areas I apply the stain with the brush and then wipe off the excess with the rack again this is not totally foolproof or perfect but it worked surprisingly well both in matching the color and the sheen who knew for the green velvet frame I popped out the plastic fake brass strips and pressed stain down into the crevice to color in any areas that looked unevenly [Music] colored to finish everything off I applied a liquid Leaf gold paint to the gold areas of the frame to give the gold a warmer tone and to try to create a cleaner Edge since some of the paint lines were uneven before well that was the goal at least I had a terrible time getting a clean line along the edge and overshot it a [Music] bit so back in we go with some mineral spirits to clean up my paint job since this is an oilbased paint this might rub off the finish on the wood as well so apply carefully if you mess up like me better not to mess up or just skip the gold paint entirely it would have been fine fine to start with but I'm happy with how mine turned out in the end and with that all the pieces are done let's reassemble and finish these up all right I'm super excited with how these projects turned out and I can't wait to show you how they look but first one more option that I wanted to point out here you may remember that kind of coppery looking frame that we saw at the beginning I really like the size and the shape of this frame for my bedroom I like how it sits up on The Mantel but I don't have any art that's at these Dimensions to go in this piece I could make something myself but I was wanting something different different in this space so I reached out to my friend Leah from flanella you may remember that we did a little mini collab video last year she's a collage artist based in Toronto and also has a channel here on YouTube since she and I connected last year I really wanted to have a piece of her art in my space and so I went on her site and kind of scrolled through looking through her options and I noticed on her site that you could email her to get custom print sizes and so I found a piece that I really liked it was pretty close to the dimensions that I needed but not quite and so I did email her and ask if she could do a custom print for me it was like 9 and 1/2 by 11 and3 quars or some weird size and so she did it and it's currently shipping to me now I'll be showing that in next week's video where I do the bedroom reveal but I just wanted to present this as an option if you have a thrifted frame that you need art in or if you have a specific place in your house that you need a really specific size piece reach out to Leah or to me or to any artist that you love and see if they can do a custom print for you prints are a really affordable way to get art that you love in your home without having to splurge on the originals and it's super cool that Leah is able to do custom print sizes I'll be sure to link her site and her Channel down below so check that out thank you so much for watching if you like this video be sure to hit the like button and if you want to see more tips and projects like this or check out my final bedroom reveal next week be sure that you're subscribed thanks so much for watching I'll see you guys soon bye [Music] Happ [Music] oh [Music] don't [Music] [Music]

Channel: REISSUED

Views: 94,940

Keywords: thrifted frames, reissued, framing hacks, diy frame ideas, diy fabric mattes, thrift flip picture frame

Id: KhSe9UgFFLo

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024