Sailing into a future involving gold paint, a framing adventure

The Find

While out for an evening walk I came across this LARGE and beautifully framed photo of a sailboat.  Framed with real glass in the front, amazingly unbroken, and reliably heavy.  So what did I do?  I carried it home with only a vague purpose in mind, thinking maybe it would fit some fancy paper that I bought to use as a poster.

The freestyle green-framed find

The Makeover

Normally I love teal. Teal is my jam.  Cerused teal? Are you kidding? I refinished an end table AND refinished a small oak bookshelf to try to achieve a similar look.  With this frame I think the pattern is some sort of overlay, or something printed on, it isn't actually teal-dyed perused wood.  Perhaps it is for the better because a frame made out of solid oak would have been even heavier.

Corner detail or the original frame

With this frame I wasn't feeling the teal, I was feeling the fake gold.  First things first, I had to take it all apart and clean it, oh, and sadly throw out the large intact piece of glass.  Sigh. It made me sad, but having glass in large frames makes them heavy, which makes them harder to hang, and that glass is very breakable which makes me nervous.  Heavy + breakable + suspended from a single nail on a wall is not a reassuring combination.  Anyway, here is what the frame looked like underneath the dust wrapper, pretty standard assembly.

Inside the back of the frame

Lots of little framer's points to pull...and save for later.

Inside of the back of the frame, corner detail

The first coat of gold paint is always a little streaky. I expected it to take a few coats to cover the darker green and bald underneath....and I was right.  Patience is the key, I try to use thin coats with plenty of dry time in between. 

After the first goal of gold paint

After the painted was complete I looked at some decorative papers I'd purchased and with the existing matting they were the right WIDTH but not the right LENGTH...... you can see some of backing board showing at the bottom with printed text on it.

Poster with backing showing

I wanted to use this "Minerologie" paper anyway so I decided to fill in the blank spot at the bottom of the frame with slightly textured watercolor paper. 

Poster with backing covered by watercolor paper

After some generous use of double-sided tape I re-assembled all the pieces, including poking those original framer's points back into their original holes.

You can see the edges between the watercolor paper pieces a little better in the close-up below.

Closeup, corner detail of watercolor paper overlapping poster

The Final Result

I LOVE the way this turned out, even with the oddity of the watercolor paper at the bottom. I just think of it as a title bar like you sometimes see on posters purchased from museums.  In this case it happens to be a blank title bar, but no matter, I can always fill it in with some script if I ever trust my own handwriting.

Minerals poster in new gold-painted frame

I think the warm shininess of the gold paint is an excellent setting for this colorful poster of minerals.

Happy freestyling, don't be afraid to take the freestyle frame even if you aren't sure what it will turn into.  Finding beauty from scavenged pieces gets easier with practice.

Ikea Lack table makeover with adhesive paper

The Ikea Lack end table, already the subject of many a makeover (aka "hack"), but here is one more for the pile.  I found this free table in a discarded furniture pile, a few chips and scuffs, but in relatively good shape for something made of particle board.

 Originally I thought about painting the table, but then I remembered that painting is messy and I'm less than enthusiastic about cleaning up from painting. So, no to painting.  Then I thought about covering the table with marbleized paper and securing it using modge podge.  Then, again, I remembered that using modge podge is pretty much like painting and that  I'm still lazy when it comes to furniture crafting .  So how to transform this boring and too dark end table into something decentish?

One night in design blog land I read about people covering tables with contact paper, ding!  Easier than painting, and all the fun of giant stickers.  In the name of thrift I decided against purchasing the beautiful and expensive faux marble paper that cost 5x more than the original table, and went with one of the options available at the local hardware store.

 Covering the table took about 1.5 hours since I was moving slowly and trying not to bang things around.  I used almost the entire 9 foot roll to cover the table (21x21 inches square on top) and the 4 legs. I also added the green felt floor protectors to the bottom of each leg. Stickers on top of stickers.

Below is the partial reveal of the finished product.

  I actually think the trellis pattern is nice, interesting but not too crazy.  I selected it because it reminded me of furniture with bone inlay or interesting painted designs. Some examples are shown below. If you close one eye and squint with the other maybe my table will look as cool as these.

 

via houzz 

 

via 1stdibs 

 

via Miss Mustard Seed 

 via ba stores

Pretend that I was thinking of all of those cool pieces above when I picked this design.  

The finished product is shown below.

Ready to hold your stuff and things.

The brighter stripe down the middle is not a figment of your imagination, it is where the two pieces of adhesive paper overlap.  Luckily the paper is re-positionable, otherwise there would have been zero hope of coming close to matching the pattern.

  It would be nicer if the paper wasn't so sheer, or if I was ambitious enough to do 2 layers and have the white be brighter, but I think $4.99 is enough of an investment for now.  My plan is to use this as a coffee table (which we didn't have before), but it might get pressed into service holding plants on the balcony.

Happy freestyling!

The value of a printer's mark

Found: Framed print of mother & child. No title, signature, or information on the back. What to do?  I originally took the piece for the frame and matting, but it seemed worthwhile to look for more info. But how to start?

Sorry about the camera flash glare....

There was one small piece of information, an imprinted mark on the lower right corner. Although it had 2 lines, only the bottom was legible to my eyes. It reads "Muenchen-22."  

Since this is how you would spell the German city of München (a.k.a. Munich) without using the umlaut, I thought this piece must have some connection to Germany.   Maybe it was made there, or maybe it was made by someone from there.

(Random Shoutout: Herr Schmitz would be proud of me, I still remember ein bisschen Deutsch!)

Oh tiny imprint, what can you tell me?

Here is where that printer's mark (as I later learned it was) took me.

Muenchen-22 led me to the name "Von der Becke", a German printer. 

Full name: Alexander Von der Becke.

Time range of operation: early-mid 20th Century

 The top line of 2 line imprint likely reads "A.V.D.BECKE"

In finding works by the printer, I learned he printed reproductions, etchings, by the artist Käthe Kollwitz, and that Von der Becke had purchased her plates in 1931.   From what I could gather, Von der Becke published mostly unsigned, and thus inexpensive, Kollwitz works. Some more searching through Kollwitz prints led to a matching image, and a title of my find! 

"Mutter mit Kind auf den Arm" (Mother with child in her arms)

The original version of this picture was created by Kollwitz in 1910,  There were reproductions made by Von der Becke starting in the 1930s, but work was interrupted by WWII.  Other websites mentioned reproductions made during the years 1946-48, and 1963-65, but it isn't clear how often or how many of these were printed.  Alexander Von der Becke died in 1958, but his business continued to be run by his wife and son, so Kollwitz prints were published until 1972.  

I have no way to tell the age of this print. Also, given the fact that it is unsigned and was found at the dump I don't have high hopes for its value. Oh well, another fun freestyle puzzle, its good to stay challenged.

On this little quest, which only took half an hour, I learned a little bit about German art and solved a mystery!

Other resources for learning about Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945):

Käthe Kollwitz Museum - Berlin

Encyclopedia Britanica 

Her work is also part of the collection in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

As happy as an alligator eating raw chicken?

I found a basic black 8x10 composite wood frame a while ago. It had spent a little time in a rain shower before I got to it, but there was no print or photo inside (did you know that wet photos stick to glass and are annoying to scrape off? now you do!). It floated around the apartment for a bit displaying a photograph that looked ok, but not great. I admit, not all my ideas work out perfectly at first.  But once Creative Roommate got her hands on it she made a watercolor we'll call "Alligator Feeding Time."

This hung on the kitchen wall, above the stove, with all the other animal feeding paintings until one day... 

She sold it! To a friend of another roommate who came in, liked it, and offered cash for this and another watercolor.  This was unprecedented, but super cool. I'm sorry I wasn't there to witness it, but I'm happy knowing that a freestyle frame was a part of it.  When Creative Roommate told me the story her smile was as big  as the alligator's in the picture. Buen provecho!

Sail into the Land of Freegifting

Found: Black frame, small poster-size

Location: In front of the building next door (talk about an easy carry-home!)

Project Steps: 

1. Clean frame

2. Suggest to Creative Roommate that she should 'paint something nautical' as a graduation party gift for a mutual friend who just finished a graduate program and does lots of work on boats.

3. Wrap it up with some cool old National Geographic maps.

4. Bring to party, present!

Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main...

Note: We discussed the possible etiquette faux pas of gifting something that was partially composed of freestyle components, and we decided that it was acceptable in this case because of the following:
1. The painting was original, and made specifically for the recipient, thus outside of the social grey area of 'regifting.'
2. The recipient appreciates creativity, and being in an environmental-related program would likely be accepting of the 'reuse and repurpose' philosophy that is at the heart of freestyling.

Flimsy Frame Find Fabulous Fish

Found: super flimsy frame from Scandinavian superstore.  

Location: Our our own street! Thanks to a friend for calling this one in as soon as he saw it. Yes, I WOULD want to go check out that pile of stuff on the sidewalk, right now!

Made of: cardboard 'backing,' thin flexible plastic front, and mystery materials (MDF?) frame with small flat metal points sticking out of the frame to hold it all together.  I would not recommend anyone buy this type of product, the metal parts fall out during normal handling, but since it was free.....

How did we freestyle it?

1. I cleaned off the frame and left it to dry.

2. Roommate trimmed this piece of goldfish-print decorative paper I had on hand. 

    (I heart Papersource, and I'm not afraid - or paid - to say it!)

3. Roommate re-assembled frame, and wrestled with it while trying to hang it on the wall.  She eventually managed to hang the frame, and get it to stay on the wall, by inserting the nail on the wall into the tiny gap between frame and cardboard backing.  Clever.

It might be a bit askew, or I could have been leaning when I took the picture....

Framed! An underwater mystery piece

Found!
(the green bucket is for compost)

 Found: small wooden frame for a panorama-style photo print, no markings or brand, glass intact.

Repairs required: only cleaning

<--Before

      After-->




  I was excited to find this nifty little wooden frame, but how to freestyle it when I didn't have any prints that I wanted for my wall?  I could have turned it over to Creative Roommate to fill with an original painting, but then a mysterious coincidence came to pass, inspired by a real life underwater mystery... read on for the full story.




One night around dinner time, Creative Roommate made me aware of this video of a mysterious underwater thing.  As I am a fan of all things aquatic, people know I like videos of underwater creatures, the stranger the better! When I saw this, I knew I had to pass it on to other fans of marine mysteries, some of whom just happen to be crafty with the paper/scissors/glue.    
 (Video also available here if the first link doesn't work)

Deepstaria enigmatica I presume....

Inspired by this mysterious underwater creature/object/part-of-creature, I was the recipient of one of life's best free things- a letter from a friend that was also original artwork.

How can I thank Deepstaria enigmatica (what some believe is the name of the jelly shown in the video) for being an artistic inspiration to my friend?  I suppose one small act of thanks is continuing to recycle plastic bags so that they don't end up in the ocean (where they get eaten by turtles who can die from the resulting intestinal blockage).  Jellies might be minimalists, but if they had to pay rent I'm sure they would appreciate free things like the rest of us, especially free artwork.  So I love this letter, and want to have it up where I can see it, but how to best display it?  

Quelle karmic coincidence, this inspired piece fits perfectly into the latest free frame find.

In a new sea of blue

I'm calling this one a freestyle group effort.  It's not every day I get to cite jellyfish as a collaborator.

Freestyle at its purest

On one level this is a blog about waste, waste that doesn't have to be.  On another level, it is a blog about people who recognize that disposable should not be the default.  This category includes people we don't know, lucky us.  Total strangers are connected to us through their objects because they took the time, the extra effort, to drop something off at the give-and-take section of "el centro de reciclaje" (quick, translation challenge!).  These strangers are shining stars in the constellation of recyclers.

Thank you mystery donors, for giving us light, literally.

I was free!

This recent find is a small table lamp with a paper shade (with one almost invisible rip near the bottom), likely from everyone's favorite Swedish furniture store. Bonus: functioning compact fluorescent bulb included.  This lamp is pure freestyle, no repair or restyle work needed, just a softly glowing prize for being at the right place at the right time.