Shabby Chic

I've said it before.  I have a Pinterest problem...Everything I see, I want to make or have.  (Kammie...I know you've been waiting for my next Pinterest project post!)  Some of the time this can be dangerous--and can often make a big dent in my wallet.  This project was not the case.  The entire project cost me $2.94.  That's right, TWO dollars and NINETY-FOUR cents!  The vision was mine, but I have to give credit to the hubs for helping me with the cropping of the photo and construction of the finished piece.  It was a true team effort, and a great little 3rd anniversary project to do together.  And I love how it turned out!

When we recently had maternity pictures taken by the fabulous Heather Goldan of Sleepy Owl Studios, I knew I had to create something to capture her amazing work. I love the combination of the rustic old windowpane, the timeless black and white photo, and the contrast of the slate gray paint color with bright white chair rail in the dining room.  So, here's how we did it!

I knew that my mom had this old window pane sitting in her basement for a while, and figured she probably wasn't using it anytime soon.  Luckily she had no plans for it, so it was=FREE.  It had two finished sides, one of which was stained light brown and the other that was an off-white color (but was slightly distressed looking).  We decided in the end that we liked the white side better, even with its imperfections.  It adds character.  After cleaning off ten years worth of dust bunnies, it was ready to go.

Once we had the window pane, we measured the inside of the pane to know how large the print would need to be.  It ended up being an exact square of 27.5 inches by 27.5 inches.  Then, JB got to work using Photoshop to figure out where the wooden pieces would land on the picture correctly.  He cropped it purposefully so that it was slightly off-center and the wooden pieces wouldn't cover our faces.  Then, he saved the cropped picture on a USB stick, and I brought it to Staples.  At Staples, they have a special "Engineering Printer" which prints enlarged images only in black and white on a thinner blueprint-like paper.  (It actually was much heavier paper than I expected it to be.)  The best part---it is SUPER inexpensive.  If you were to enlarge a picture to this size on their regular paper, it costs $10.99/square foot! Getting it printed on photo paper would be outrageous.  Plus, the nice man at Staples only charged me for the actual size of the image (not the extra white paper border around the outside).  Once home, we laid out the picture and placed the frame on top to determine the border.  It was kind of difficult to see, because the sky in the picture shows up very lightly in black and white.  After tracing the picture to the exact size of the frame, I cut the picture to size.

My trusty helper with his T-Square.  :-)

To give the picture some sturdier backing, I applied double-sided tape to regular white poster board that covered the entire image.  This way, you cannot see through the paper and it gave the picture some more support.  Then, we used thicker double-sided scrapbooking tape to adhere the image to the perimeter of the actual frame. 

The project was finished by adding some heavy duty picture hooks to the back of the window pane. And the best part??  We got it right on the first try!  There are only two holes in the wall, and the project is level on the wall.  What do you think??

  P.S.---No Baby Dustin yet....Heading to the doctor this afternoon.  Stay tuned!