[Frame Friday: All-American Frame]

In honor of our upcoming Independence Day, I decided to make a patriotic frame. I am planning on giving it to my mom when we go visit her on the 4th to add to her American themed guest bedroom.

I bought this unfinished wooden frame at Michael's for $1. I love to stock up on these inexpensive frames because they are full of crafty possibilities! And I really liked the square shape to this frame.

First I painted the entire frame with Apple Barrel white acrylic paint. I chose to use the Apple Barrel brand honestly because it's cheap. And I like using acrylic because it dries super fast.

Next I printed off an image of a star I found online, cut it out, and used it as a template to trace my stars on with a pencil. Then comes the tricky part: painting around the stars. Now I am sure the smart thing to do would be to use a small paint brush to be as precise as possible. But there was no small paintbrush to be found in my house. Only a giant bag of sponge brushes in various sizes. I chose to use the smallest one. The paint I used is called "English Navy" by Apple Barrel.

Okay, so the stars aren't "picture perfect", but don't you think a little imperfection gives any project more character? Anyways, after the paint fully dried, I whipped out my blue painters tape and marked out where I wanted to paint the red stripes.

Ahh...the easy part. I had to paint on a couple coats of the red paint in order to fully cover up the white. If I didn't, then it would be PINK, white, and blue flag. :0) I used "Barn Red" paint by Apple Barrel. (is this a commercial for Apple Barrel or what?!)

After the paint dried completely, I ripped off the tape (my favorite part!) to finally see the finished product. What do you think? Patriotic, huh? All in all, this entire project took me my child's nap time (which lucky for me was 2 whole hours!). And I think the total cost ended up being about 3 bucks! Isn't that just frametastic?!!

Happy Friday! God Bless America!

Frugal Friday