An Antiqued Frame

This post is long overdue. It's just a short one, but I've been planning on posting it since *cough-lastFebruary-cough*. Yep. Long overdue.

So here it is. For the chalkboard I was making for the baby bump saga, I wasn't content with just a plain painted frame. I think I get too crafty when I'm pregnant. Anyone else? Just me? I bet there are more of you out there.

So I found a frame at Goodwill that would suffice for the chalkboard, and I was all excited to finally get to try out the idea I saw on Pinterest for antiquing or aging wooden things. Furniture, frames, you name it. I didn't have any furniture to try it on at the time... we hadn't decided yet to use the desk for the changing table and I thought if it turned out badly, all I was out was the money for the frame. Actually, I figured I would just paint over it if it didn't work.
(And contrary to how it sounds, I do not spend my entire life on Pinterest. Really.)

So the first trick I tried was with vaseline. This is where you put bits of vaseline in various spots where you don't want the paint to stick. Spray paint over it, and then when the paint is dry, wipe away the vaseline. This did work rather beautifully, but wasn't completely the look I wanted.

So I tried another trick. This one is just so simple it seems not worth posting, and you are all so smart, you have probably already figured this one out, but I did want to show you the contrast between the two. I sanded off the paint in places.
Actually, I used steel wool. I didn't want to use the dish-scrubber (you know the curly steel wool looking ones) and I didn't have sandpaper. We had some steel wool at the house from when we were trying to stuff a mouse-hole with it. Which did work, actually. Thank goodness! So I used that- wear gloves if you try it. That stuff is brutal.
And this is how the steel wool spots turned out.

So the combination of the two is just what I wanted. If I wanted it to look nice (not antiqued, anyway) I would have gone with another coat or two on the spray-paint, but I really liked the look of it as it was- I feel like it kindof helped.

So there you go!


What are your favorite methods of aging things? I'd love your comments!

And here are the pictures of my completed frame. With me and the baby bump. But you knew that already too.