Frames, Frames, Frames

So yesterday my mom and I had a mother-daughter bonding day and by that I mean we tackled many of the cleaning projects in our house that have been put off for too long. We cleaned the basement of our 90+year old house equipped with only rubber gloves and black trash bags (though I would have liked a face mask maybe to deal with the moldy, musty smell!) and somehow I got stuck doing all the hard labor of lugging bags and furniture to the curb.. We cleaned our upstairs, especially our "toy closet" which used to hold all of our toys but now holds sweaters, coats, books, cds, records, storage bins, fans, etc etc. While we were going through everything my eye landed on a pile of huge framed photos that my mom got from our old neighbors before they moved. All had various pictures like this that they had taken on an African safari years earlier.

Now these are beautiful photos and nice frames but this was a definite spur of the moment decision of my mom to take these. We don't have large photos, have no intention to really hang large photos, and it's a little weird to hang someone else's meaningful pictures in our home. So I asked her if I could keep a few (okay all but 2) of the frames (there are like 10 total) and I'd find stuff to frame.

While we continued to go through the great abyss of the toy closet, many interesting things were uncovered such as beanie babies, my driver's ed graduation certificate, long lost clothing items, my dad's old really embarrassing records, photos of my ex boyfriend and I at my senior year Winterball, and best of all... old artwork of my sister and mine from elementary and middle school!

Now here's a funny story. I started to pull out projects of mine and said,

"Oh my god, this is so ugly. I'm trashing this." 

And my mom immediately counters,

"You are not throwing any of that out! I love your artwork!" 

And I turn the artwork around and she says,

"Okay that you can throw out."

Laughter ensued. 

Long story short we went through a bunch of old artwork and decided to keep some really nice meaningful pieces. Then a light bulb went off. I am going to use the frames from earlier!

After a long and incredibly irritating process of pulling off paper, digging out staples/sharp things (the photos were professionally framed), and suffering only one surprisingly painful cut to my finger, I finally got a few art pieces framed. Unfortunately due to different sized paper and frames, I couldn't frame everything because I did not want to cut anything. Here's what I got...

 This is a practice sketch I did of a drawing that I gave an old boyfriend for Valentine's Day. So glad I saved the sketch because I think it looks kinda cool half done. Also I lucked out because I saved the nice mounting from the previous picture!

This is a sketch I did a few years ago and even though it's an apple core, I think it's really cool. Especially if you look up at it close, you can see all the different colors I used. I also used this for my final project for an English class at Temple, arguing that something labeled everyday as ugly can be beautiful and claiming that I drew it for that specific class and project.. What the teacher doesn't know won't hurt her!

This is my favorite thing I framed. I found paintings that my sister and I both did of sunflowers in first grade, 3 years apart. Hers is on the left and mine is on the right. Good thing Inglewood Elementary never changes their art projects!

Such a cute thing to put up in winter! This is a pastel drawing that I did in 2nd grade. I think my shading was better then than it is now..

Now I am saving my favorite thing for last. Okay I am completely and utterly obsessed with the website Pinterest. I will dedicate a blog later to it professing my love for it. Anyways I saw an idea on there to make some sort of wall decoration by using different colored/patterned scrapbook paper.. So I ended up with this, which I LOVE and will be hanging up at school..

I found cute patterned scraps of scrapbooking paper and cut them all to the same size then used black paint to paint on the letters. Originally I used the foam posterboard that the original framed photo was glued to as my white background. I painted over it in white paint but because some of the glue adhesive pulled off paper and just left an uneven mess, it didn't really look too pretty. So I sat staring at this for about 5 minutes thinking... where can I find long white paper... then my eye landed on a dresser in my room filled with gift wrapping supplies. Ding ding ding! Tissue paper. Not only is it white and super thin, it adds a neat crinkly effect that contrasts the stiffness of the paper. Swoon.

I love this piece partly because..

I love the song "Imagine".

Sometimes I need to be reminded to imagine the endless possibilities and not dwell.

I would be nowhere without my imagination.

:)
xoxo