Saturday Afternoon Project

During the grand de-clutter (which began all the way back here and continues, albeit on a smaller scale, up to the present day) I came across a little pile of framed photos that for one reason or another had been consigned to the back of a cupboard.  Some were broken, some had photos that people had complained didn't show their best side, and some were nice photos in frames that might be described as 'minging'.  

All alone on Saturday afternoon, whilst Mr U-t-B was flying home from a few days in this setting...

...where they're having the best start to the ski season for twenty years...

...with so much snow, even the normally bare cliff faces are mostly white!

Mr U-t-B (and his bro-in-law) having a soup-er time - groan!

...I decided to tackle the frames, in a bid to free up the cupboard space where they had been languishing, and thereby allow the creation of a special place for lightbulbs (which are currently in the most inaccesible place).  I had been inspired by Christmas-time visits to my sisters-in-law's houses, where lovely photos of family are liberally displayed to great effect. (Thanks Mary and Teresa!)

This is what lay before me...

What was needed was a bit of unification of the frames, through the medium of Annie Sloan paint and a bit of mending.  

Wasn't I a good girl?  I even put newspaper down.

I did buy three matchpots, thinking that I didn't want every frame to be exactly the same colour, but in the end only used the Annie Sloan (which I think is Cream) and a little bit of a very slightly off-white.

I introduced a bit of variety by having left a couple of frames very dark brown (pretty much black) and buying three cheap frames from Homebase.

Once I had improved the frames, I faddled around trying to find a pleasing arrangement.

Then I set about finding, scanning and printing photos I thought would be nice to have up.  Some of the originals from the frames stayed, but I scanned them in as I wanted them all to be black and white.

 There were a few switch-abouts, and then I just needed ski-bum to return, to admire my work and put it up on the wall! 

We tried to get it up yesterday, in time for our Sunday lunch visitors to admire, but sadly we ran out of time. 

But today, after work, up it went.  A few little gaps have opened up as it went up, so we will look out for some really small ones to fill them...

But overall, I'm pretty pleased with it!

And I will soon be able to find a lightbulb when I need one, without having to do my impression of a contortionist to get it!