Shabby chic style dollar store photo frames

I've seen a few blogs where people have made their own photo frames using left-over pieces of timber moulding. The main problem with building your own photo frame is that you'll need to purchase glass or perspex to go into your frame, and this can be a bit expensive. I find its cheaper to buy dollar store photo frames and fix them up so they no longer look like a plastic dollar store frame.

I had a few of these frames lying around already and decided to try out spray painting them with a creamy white coloured spray paint and then sanding back the edges to get a bit of a shabby chic look.

Both frames are made of plastic - one is silver coloured plastic and the other is a fake timber plastic with gold painted on the inner edge. I removed the glass and backings and gave them a clean before spray painting. I did two coats to get it even, and to get all the sides.

Once it had thoroughly dried, I used 150 grit sandpaper to rub the edges to get the silvery colour showing on the right side one and the gold and timber colour showing on the other one. If you want it to look a bit less scratchy, a sanding block would achieve a finer result (one of those foam sanding pads).

Close-up of the sanded back edges
 

After sanding, I dusted off all the sand dust and added a photo of my grandmother into one and in the other I put one of our wedding thank you cards. The photo doesn't show up the silver and gold bits very well.

The frames are a big improvement over the plastic look.