Altered Frame

My second project for this month's By The Cute And Girly challenge - 'In the garden' is an altered frame with an oriental style picture.  I took some photos along the way with this one to share how it was done. 

First off I bought a rather bright orange frame from the bargain shelf at TKMaxx.  I masked off the cream edging that I wanted to keep and part of the glass. 

I made a matt base for spraying using Claudine Hellmuth's Studio gesso, I

dabbed white all over the orange with a sponge.  After this dried I left the masking tape in place and put a 6x4 piece of plain card over the glass to protect it.  I sprayed the frame lightly with Adirondack Color Wash in Stream, the overspray collected on the card (which i can use for another project!)

I dabbed over the top with a clean area of my sponge to push the paint into the weave of the hessian and to give a slightly paler colour.  Once all this was dry I removed the masking tape and was ready to decorate.

The oriental scene, and the embellishments on the bottom of the frame are from Papermania's Tulip range, which I've coloured watercolours.

The top of the frame has blooms from Wild Orchid Crafts and leaves from Cuddly Buddly.  The hessian was so absorbent I had to use a hot glue gun to make everything stick to the frame.

I see that Moving Along With The Times have a new challenge this morning (#101) to make a project with no designer papers, so I would like to enter my altered frame for that one.

** Kate **