Easiest DIY craft in the world ... literally.

I was in a crafty mood today and wanted to revamp something easy that I wouldn't miss if I messed up and I came out with this!  I have been wanting to make something look antique looking and had looked on Pinterest for tutorials but most of them used materials I didn't have lying around the house.  So I improvised with what I had and quite happy about it too!

This beautiful thing took literally ten minutes to make! And is super cheap too!

 

Want to learn how to make your own? Great! I want to show you!  First you need supplies.  I had all of mine, but if you don't you literally can spend probably like $4 at the most (this depends on what you get).  Here is the list:

1. Cheap frame-I got mine at the dollar store ($1)

2. Paint- I just used my trusty, yet cheap Anita's acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby.  I used two colors, a dark brown and then a tealish color.  (They are about $0.73 each).

3. Cheap paint brush (see picture below).  The cheaper the better.  I think I got this in a package of like 6 for $2.  You need cheap to help give the antique look.

4. For you impatient folks like me grab your hair dryer so you can dry the layers quickly (and so I stay honest when I say it literally takes ten minutes to do this).

Here is the picture of paint and brush I used. 

Let's get started!

First take you frame and start painting your base color.  You can do any color you want.  Here is my before frame (you can see I had already started painting ... I decided last minute I wanted to share a post about this):

I did the dark brown underneath.  You don't need to put a whole lot on.  Also, I didn't sand my frame (some other tutorials suggest it, but I'm lazy).  I think this actually helped because then the paint came out a little streaky, not solid.  Which helped with antique look.  I did two thin coats and dried each with my hair dryer.  Since they were thin coats though it didn't take long.

Here's what it looked like after those two coats:

I actually kind of liked how it looked with just the brown, but we have brown everything it feels and I wanted a nice color so I didn't give in to the urge to just stop here.

Next I painted my teal on.  I really only did one coat.  You'll see why you need a cheap brush for this step.  The paint doesn't go on nice and smooth with a cheap brush and so it leaves spots where the brown can show through.  I dried it with my hair dryer and then touched up some spots I didn't like.  And it came out like this!

I seriously love it! I might start attacking other frames in our place!  Try it out and let me know how you did!