We’ve lived in this house for over a year, but our walls are still mostly bare – due to a mixture of laziness, budget and not finding the ‘perfect’ frames. To get exactly what I wanted, for less, I decided to chalk paint two old picture frames.

A few months back I bought two old frames at Goodwill. The shape and details were great but they were beat up and not my choice of colors. I scored them for a whopping $4.

Here are the original frames:

The plan was to give these frames a makeover and use them to display photographs of our kids. A little chalk paint, sanding and waxing and they cleaned up nicely in a couple of hours.

I like how even though both frames are painted with the same color and style, the original frame color showing through in the distressed areas makes each frame unique.

I roughly estimated the blue frame as a standard 11×14″ size in the store. However, once I tried to put a new 11×14″ mat into it, I discovered the opening was actually 11×15″. Whoops.

Not wanting to make or buy a custom mat, I used some decorative tape I had on hand ($1 section at Target) to make a border all the way around.

With chalk paint and wax, a little goes a long way. I had plenty of black chalk paint leftover from the DIY Outdoor Vertical Stencil-Painted ‘Believe’ and ‘Grateful’ Sign, and wax and brushes leftover from the Updated Framed Mirror. I spent $4 on the two frames, $1 on tape, and $2 on the pre-cut 11×14 mat. That makes two framed photos for $7. Worth it!