THE ALTERED FLEA: Chicken Wire

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Monday, December 22, 2014

Display Your Holiday Cards in Style

What do you get when you find a large, vintage picture frame, chicken wire and a set of alphabet stamps? Answer: A great way to display this year's holiday cards!

With so many people sending photo holiday cards,
how do you display them without their constantly falling down?
Here's a creative idea using just a few items
that are probably sitting in your garage just waiting for
some DIY inspiration.

All you need is a large picture frame, chicken wire, clothespins, and washi tape. Paint the frame, attach the chicken wire (you can find a tutorial here), embellish mini clothespins with washi tape, stamp "Happy Holidays" on card stock, and easily create a beautiful display for all those photo cards you receive this year.

This is also a great way to display vintage holiday family photos.

Chanukah 1959

You can also embellish the frame with holiday decor. I added cinnamon sticks and twine to the top of my frame. Then I stamped burlap card stock and hung "Happy Holidays" across the frame.

From my family to yours,

we wish you a very happy holiday season,

and look forward to great DIY inspiration in 2015!

Photo card ordered from Snapfish

Linky Parties

Friday, October 19, 2012

While recently stumbling onto a yard sale, I picked up a beat-up, lonely picture frame [sans glass or artwork]. It was in bad shape. I think it was going to be tossed into the nearby dumpster as it was sitting on the side of the yard and it was already the end of the day. I offered to trade a crisp one dollar bill for the poor chap. SOLD!

I decided to take the frame out of its misery with a coat of the aqua "oops" paint I had previously used on my step stool. One light coat made the decorative frame look distressed, so I didn't even have to sand it.

I've had an affinity for everything burlap lately, so I incorporated a recently acquired coffee bean burlap sack. This one has a turquoise stripe down the center of the sack, complementing the frame's new hue.

I remembered that I also had some chicken wire hiding in my stash. So why not use both the chicken wire AND the burlap? [Double the effort? Yes, indeed!]

For this project, I took out the "big girl" tools.

[Usually, my tool kit is a bottle of decoupage and a foam brush.]

After CAREFULLY snipping the wire to fit the frame, I stapled the wire to the back, hammering the staples flat.

OK, that was easy [just kidding].

After a quick coffee break, I measured and cut the burlap to size, trying my best to position the turquoise stripe to land in the center of the frame.

I folded painter's tape over the burlap edges, making it much easier to staple the burlap to the frame, and avoid frayed edges.

Voila!

I could've stopped right there, but my "altered" state took over.

From the leftover burlap, I cut five banners, stamped them with large alphabet letters [spelling "notes"], and then stitched them along the edges to minimize fraying. Then I stitched the banners to a long piece of linen ribbon. Then sewed on a few vintage Parisian buttons (which I actually bought in a Paris flea market!)