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!

Shark attack

  

Found: black plastic snap frame with 3-picture mat (water-damaged), front acrylic sheet intact and useable.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Going to the swap shelf on overcast days is usually less fruitful than sunny ones.  Rain ruins a lot of otherwise useable stuff, but I got this frame before it was too far gone.  The backing was too far gone, but the mat was only partially damp, so Creative Roommate was able to take it out, dry it, and paint it to cover the water stain.     At left is a photo of the mat in the process of being painted.

                       

Her inspirations are varied, but this was a surprise when I found it on the kitchen wall on morning. Good day to you oh representatives of Carcharodon carcharias!  Are you fans of freestyle?

Feed me! and me! and me!

Since this happens to be in our kitchen, it seems appropriate that these pictures are about hungry animals.

Stay tuned for how this blank canvas of a wall will get freestyled in the days ahead.

Refashioning a fashion illustration

 We'll never know if the ladies pictured in this advertisement preferred milk or sugar in their tea, but I'm sure they would have appreciated finding something for free.  
 

Dis-assembled pieces, drying out.

This page of fashion illustrations is from (or is perhaps a reproduction of) Godey's Lady's Book, a popular magazine of the era.  When found it was in a frame behind glass, but in the midst of being water damaged.  The discoloration on the matting caused by moisture is evident in the picture above.
The fashion page is taped down to some kind of cardboard, which seemed to be in ok shape, but the matting had to go.

Creative Roommate decided to re-assemble the pieces in a quasi-diploma frame style.

On display

  But what free item did she use to hold the illustration against the single front pane of glass?

Closeup of the corner

Chopsticks!