My new Miss Capricho algae watercolor in a repurposed frame

I feel like I have ADB - attention deficit blogging.  For any of you who have kids with ADD, you might not find that amusing.  But I do have serious issues staying on task.  There's always something else more exciting to jump to!  On top of that, I have "just one more thing" syndrome.  Are you familiar with it?  I'm always trying to squeeze in one more thing before I run out the door to an appointment, or before I go to bed, or before I show off a room on the blog.  That's why I'm usually running late, in life and in blogging.  Everything is on schedule, then I try to fit one more thing in and then I'm off track.  Such is me.

But enough about my shortcomings ... and on to a reveal.  I teased this project when I told you about Miss Capricho's algae watercolor.  I teased it a second time when I showed you the unwanted butterfly wall art that I was going to repurpose to frame my new art.  I teased it a third time in my last post when I told you there was an update coming that pushed me to show you my "before blogging" whitewashed side table.

Wow ... that's a lot of teasing.  I'm not sure the reveal is quite THAT exciting, but I love it nonetheless.  Let's jump to a before and after.

I had purchased the butterfly print in the shabby-chic frame probably three years ago from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  At the time, I was in my blue/brown coastal phase, so it seemed to fit in with that color scheme. It never found a permanent place in my home because eventually I realized it just wasn't me.

A few months ago I taped off the glass and painted the outside of the frame turquoise, thinking that might make the art work better for my style.  Nah, not so much.  So rather than letting it catch dust in the basement or selling it for a fraction of the original price, I decided to repurpose it!

To replace the print, I cut the paper off the back of the frame and bent back the staples holding the mirror/art inside the frame.  What I remembered when I did that is that I had two issues:

1. Even though I had already painted the outside of the frame turquoise, I had forgotten that there was a bead of trim between the mirror and the print inside the frame that also needed to be painted.  Oops.
2. I also had forgotten that because the frame is a shadowbox, there was a strip of decorative paper around the inside of the frame, between the glass and the print/mirror.  Oops again.

As you can see in the photo above, the color was not going to work for my new, brightly colored print.  Rather than painting everything turquoise, I decided on black as well.  There's a little bit of black/gray in the print itself, and since I intended to hang it in my living room, it would tie in to my black sofa as well.  It might take me a while, but I had it figured out.

The other challenge is that I had to cut down the print just slightly on all sides in order to fit inside the space.  I was so nervous about cutting straight, but I didn't have easy access to a giant cutting board, so I did it very carefully.  I cleaned off the mirror, cleaned the glass, and reassembled everything.  Well, it might have taken me three tries to remember to do all that, but eventually it all came together and it was all closed back up.

Here you can see that I painted the inside trim paper black

Since you've already seen what the finished piece looks like up close, here it is in its current home.

It replaced a sea fan shadowbox that I had there previously, which you can see in my last post about my whitewashed side table.  I am in love with my framed sea fan (which my lovely sister-in-law Lydia DIY'd for me to match one I'd been lusting after online), so it will be getting a new home very soon.  

And if that light switch wasn't right there, I'd hang the print a bit lower, but clearly that table just isn't tall enough.  Ugh.

Here's another before and after shot.  Quite a change, and so much more my style.

Do you like the change, or did you prefer it in its previous state?

Hollie