Teach Me Tuesday: Adding Vintage Elements to Open Framing

Welcome to Teach Me Tuesday! I spend a lot of time each week reading all of the great DIY tips out there in Blogland. Because there are so many fabulous projects that I can’t wait to try, I figured that it would be fun to feature some of my very favorites here each Tuesday.

If you would like to be featured in an upcoming edition of Teach Me Tuesday, please email me at LivingWithLindsay@gmail.com and we’ll chat!

Today’s edition of Teach Me Tuesday comes from the very talented Melissa of 320 * Sycamore. Melissa is a gal after my own heart, as she loves to think outside of the box and come up with ways to bring out the charm in her surroundings. Her blog is wonderful and just right up my alley (and up your alley, too, if you like what I ramble about!).

I was drawn to Melissa several months ago when she ran a series tackling yard sales. She details what you should do before, during and after your thrifting extravaganza. And then, to make your life easier, she tells you what to do before and during your own sale. She even provides a handy checklist so you make sure all of your bases are covered. If you enjoy spending your Saturday mornings buying other people’s old stuff or selling your own, you’ll want to check out her series.

Today, I’m featuring one of Melissa’s great projects that you can make from things found at yard sales. How perfect is that?

Melissa gives us the Key to Her Heart:

Okay, cheesy title, but I needed to make a filler for my wall since I decided to go ahead and break my plates. Didn’t go to yard sales this past weekend (are you proud of me??) so I went ahead and shopped the house…

I found a ring of old keys I found at a random yard sale this winter that my kids love to play jail and zoo with. They love the klinkety sounds of the keys, so I took three off and left two to jingle. We’ll see if they notice…

Another framed yard sale picture ($1) I was going to use to make a chalkboard with, but I’m going to use it here instead.

Take them out to my workshop, a.k.a my garage with an old carpet remnant on the ground. The carpet serves 2 purposes: soak up oil from our little old car my husband drives and my spray paint center.

The frame is perfect, don’t need to touch that. Spray paint the keys black and when they are fairly dry, I take a fine sandpaper and gently let some of the gold show through to make them look nice and old:

Set the glass and the picture aside, cut the paper to fit the frame, hot glue the paper to the back of the frame:

It looks great just like that, but we’re going to add our keys…

Hot glue them on, and there you have it.Who needs pretty white plates when you’ve got cool grungy keys in a frame??

You see what it’s sitting on? The top of my washing machine is my glue gun center.

Now, back to the title~how cool would this be to frame an old key and give to your dearest one with a note attached that says…”to the one that holds the key to my heart.” You could make it all manly with some burlap fabric for the background.

My husband is shaking his head.

OK, what if the guy tied some bling to one of the keys with a cool ribbon with the same note?

And then proposed??

I’m going to sell the rights to the movie…you saw it here first.