Cat's Crafty Crafting: Nursery crafts: Madeline Picture Frames

Nursery Crafts: Madeline Picture Frames

Basic Frames from Michael's

Inspiration: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans

The illustrations from his books are so vivid that when my friend told me she was naming her daughter Madeline, and that her nursery colors were yellow and grey, that the first thing out of my mouth was how yellow the Madeline book illustrations were. And that we had to do this. Correction: I had to do this.

What I started with:

Picture frames from Michael's. I got basic frames from the wood section with glass, and then saw the ivy decorative frames and thought YES. Then I loaded my arms with yellow, black, and metallic silver paint. Grey is boring, silver will make these pop. A hot glue gun, glossy modge podge, and a my trusty paint brush. Also, a used copy of Madeline in good condition from alibris.com which actually ended up shipping from thriftbooks.com and my trusty Xacto knife and a ruler to measure out just the pictures I wanted.

Ivy frames from Michael's,
and a cat trying to join in.

So I got out my trusty plastic storage box (the lid is perfect for crafting on while watching television, and got going. I refuse to buy paint trays, and use the glossy paper that comes in the frames as my palate.

I double layered 3 sets with acrylic paint. One set silver, one set black, one set yellow. I have two extra sets for when I decide which combinations pop the best. After I paint all the frames, and they dry, I'll seal them with the modge podge and then hot glue them together. The best part about Michael's frames are that you generally don't have to sand anything down, or strip anything off the frame prior to painting. For some colors I'll prime, but I didn't bother for these.

Yellow on Black, Black on Silver,
Silver on Yellow.

Silver on Black, Yellow on Silver
Black on Yellow

These are shots of the painted frames, and how they can mix to form great combinations. As you can see, the ivy frames will lay on top of the other frames, but can be centered or diagonal for a different look.

After the frames dried I coated them with the glossy modge podge to give them a shine and seal. While they dried I started deconstructing the Madeline book I got online at alibris.com (as much as I hate destroying a book!!) and measuring the pictures with the glass from the picture frames. I cut out 7 pictures, which means that there are 14 pictures to go in the 5 frames, and the nursery will have different pictures whenever she gets sick of the ones I chose.

Shown: Destroyed book, xacto knife (and the cork I keep it in to prevent injury)
also, some of the illustrations that will be framed.

Glue on the outside seam

When the frames were done drying the the illustrations were all cut out I started gluing the frame parts together. I used my handy dandy hot glue gun and learned a valuable lesson. Hot glue doesn't like to do what I want it to. I ended up doing four dabs of glue in the corners right outside the glass, and pressing the top piece down on to them. Then I placed glue in the inner and outer seams to fully connect the wood pieces. They've stuck together over the weekend, so I think they're OK.

Clockwise from top
"or shine"
"to the tiger at the zoo, Madeline just said 'poo poo'"
"She was not afraid of mice"

And here is our final product. Picture frames fit for a princess. Unfortunately the flash messed these up a bit, so there will be better pictures up soon.