This hand-painted quote frame was one I liked so much, I ended up making one for me too. (Don’t tell, :)) Christmas is just around the corner, so I’ve been pulling out all of my art supplies to make treasures for my family and friends.
I originally purchased this blank frame from Target, but you could pick one up from a craft store. Many craft stores have an entire section of wood creations just waited for you to paint. You might have to sand the frame before you start, but I didn’t, since mine was smooth.
For the frame with the bright greens and blues, I painted the entire frame white to start with so my colors would be bright. For the more muted golds and pinks frame, I painted directly onto the wood, because I wanted the texture and color of the wood to show. It’s really up to you!
I painted on one color at a time, waiting for each one to dry (or using my hair dryer to speed up the process.) After the final layer was finished, I used paint pens, colored pencils, and a regular pencil to add additional marks and details. I’m telling you, painting like this is like glorified doodling—once you start, you don’t want to stop! 🙂
You could potentially draw out your design prior to painting, but I just jumped in and made marks. Here’s the thing: if your frame is extra awful and you can’t stand it, you can wait for it to completely dry and paint over it. That’s the lovely thing about acrylic.
For the quote, I wrote out a favorite Goethe quote that I’ve had written out on a scrap piece of paper and taped to my wall all year long. 🙂 Then I colored in the “weighted edges” to make it look like calligraphy. You can Google a hand-lettered alphabet to see which side of the letter you should darken but it’s usually the downstroke.
I scanned the quote into my computer, resized it, and printed it out. Walla! You could also write the original quote in pencil, ink it, and let it completely dry before using a kneaded eraser to erase the pencil marks if you’d like to bypass the computer and scanner part.
Are you making gifts this year? I’m making a few and buying the rest. Let me know in the comments what you plan to do!
