Happy Monday, friends! Have you ever bought a vintage wooden frame but some of the fancy moulding or trim was damaged or missing? Me too! Come see how to repair a vintage wooden frame!
I bought this beautiful vintage frame a few years ago. It was missing several large chunks of the decorative moulding. One option would be just to fill in the gaps with gold leaf paint, but I wanted something that looked a little more polished. Plus, I finally had a print that would perfectly fit this frame. Time to fix it properly!
I had some of this Creative Paperclay in my stash from another project. It’s a formable modeling material that will dry and harden into a paintable medium. It can also be used in molds, etc.
I pinched off a bit of the clay and rolled it into a long finger-like shape like so.
I pushed the clay into the gaps on the frame using my fingers to shape it to fit the space. If you have too much simply pinch off some of the clay and start over. This is very forgiving since it takes the clay a while to dry. Once I was satisfied with the size and shape, I used a loose piece of the molding to roll over the clay to give it a similar pattern as the rest of the frame. Then I let it dry.
I allowed the clay to dry overnight so it was good and hard. Then I glued the pieces into place and let that dry too.
When the clay and glue were completely dry, I dabbed on some flat black paint over the clay pieces. If you’ve ever worked with gold leaf, you know there are usually layers of black and even red paint underneath the gold. This frame looked like the base coat was black, so I went with that. I had a black paint pen on hand so that’s what I used, but any black paint will do.
After the black paint dried I pounced on some gold leaf Rub n’ Buff over the black paint allowing a tiny bit of the black to show through. Then to freshen up the rest of the gold on the frame I dry brushed the gold leaf over the raised parts of the trim. Here’s how it turned out!
Please forgive the shadows as this photo was taken in my basement treasure room. But you can see how the blank areas of the frame are now filled in and painted. And because vintage frames are not perfect anyway, this just adds to its charm.
Here’s a before and after of the frame. The print in the before picture is the one I’m going to use in the frame. But look how nice the frame looks on the right all repaired! I need to get a piece of 16 x 20″ glass cut then I’ll frame it myself. (I’m afraid that if I took it to a frame shop they might be a little too rough with it.)
Now wasn’t that easy? It really was! I love the details on the frame and its hard to beat the charm of antiques! So, if you find a vintage frame that you love, don’t be scared away by a few missing pieces. Especially if the price is good! Go for it! Trust me, anyone can do this.
Well, thanks for stopping by today. I’ll be sure and share the print when I get it framed and I’ll also share a little secret about the print too! Meanwhile, have a great day. Much love, Dell
