DIY-Pottery Barn Inspired Heirloom Frames

I am up to my eyeballs in health-problems with my littlest one; but I had to share one little project with you --- it gets my mind of things that aren't so pleasant to think about right now. ☻

Have you seen these frames from Pottery Barn?

I so love them- we have seen frames like this everywhere lately in Home Decor-I think it is a really fun look.
BUT...guess what these 3 frames cost from old PB?? $129!!! Are you kidding me? I don't even spend that on a piece of furniture. OK I'm very frugal/cheap/whatever you want to call it.

Lucky for me, I have some pretty good thrift stores in my area. I found these way back in June:

A few months later, I found another one with a round opening. (sorry no before pic)  For 3 vintage frames- all gold to start with- I spent about $16. (I even thought that was expensive- until I saw what PB wanted.)

First I painted them black. And then I put them on a black shelf.  Bleh. Too much black.

Anyway- so I copied good old Pottery Barn and now they look like this:

Personally for about $16, plus about $3 for a can of spray paint, I'll take these instead.

I learned a few things about getting the "heirloom/antiqued" look.

You can do a glazing technique, as I did here on this table.  You can get the extra glaze off with a wet rag, OR- if you let it dry, and don't like it, I used finger nail polish remover w/ a Q-tip and got the extra off! It totally worked! It did not take off the paint, just the extra glaze, after it had dried.

OR you can paint them black first, and then white- or whatever color you chose. THEN you just use a light and fine sanding square and lightly sand where you want the black to show. If  your sanding square or sand paper is too coarse, you could end up sanding the black off- and then just having gold- so you have to be careful.

Here is the 2 different finishes:

The one of the left was sanded, and the two on the right were glazed. Personally I like the sanded one- it was easier and less messy. (I might even remove some of the glaze on the glazed ones, and sand them instead.)  Plus, I haven't really mastered the art of glazing. There are a few pieces of furniture in this house waiting for a glazing-- but I'm just not sure-it may be easy to do- but I am just not great at it yet.

Here are PB's and mine:

I like them on a blue wall. Hhhmmm... where would you display them? 

I'm not sure where they are going - so ideas & suggestions would really be great! ☺

Thanks for reading. Hope you are having a great week!

OXOXO