Altered Antique Camera Frame

Hi everyone!  Today I'm sharing the first of two projects for the Tim Holtz Inspiration Series using some of his 2015 holiday releases.  

Everyone who likes to make handmade gifts are always looking for new and unique ideas, so hopefully this will inspire you.  

I love going to antique stores or markets, always looking for items that I can either alter or just because I need to have them!  My husband always comments, where are we going to put that?  It's funny, because I drag him to these places, yet he's the one that purchases something even before I have barely looked at anything! Anyways, I have collected a few wood camera film frames and I use them as picture frames.

This is what they look like.  They used to put the glass or tin plates inside and use these in those beautiful old cameras.  I love the wood construction and patina on these.  

 The sides slide down and there's usually two parts on a fabric hinge, so when you pull them out they can bend like an easel. I really haven't researched what the reason for this is, but it is great for a stand up frame.

Instead of a photo in my frame, I've used a card from the Festive Ephemera Pack (TH93241).  This is matted on a piece of black Kraft Core Cardstock.  I used one of the Tim Holtz Sizzix Holiday Knit Thinlit dies (660981) to create a thin border around the red Kraft Core Frame.  I marked where my black mat was going to be and placed adhesive just along that edge.  I then adhered the zigzag strips from that die-cut.  You will need two of these cuts.  I lightly sanded the raised zigzag strips and adhered my picture.

I then matted that to another piece of black Kraft Core cardstock with pop-dots adhesive.  This was then adhered to my plaid patterned paper from the Tim Holtz Yuletide Paper Pack.

Before placing my picture into the wood frame, I cut out a piece of thin chipboard for support and adhered that with thin adhesive strips to the lip of the inside opening.  

My picture was then adhered to that and this is what it looks like in the frame.

Now for decorating the frame.  Using another piece from the Holiday Knit Thinlits set, I die-cut one piece out of red and one piece out of green Kraft Core Cardstock.  Before lifting the green paper out of the metal die, carefully turn it over making sure all the pieces are still inside.  I use scotch tape and tape the back lightly.  Just press lightly on the pieces that you want to stick to the tape and then carefully pull the paper away from the die.  The little pieces stay on the tape, or most of them do.  Then you just place the red piece of cardstock on top (with all the little pieces punched out) and the green fit perfectly inside.  Much easier than trying to place each one in individually.  I usually leave the tape on the back too.

This is what your piece looks like.

I decided to replace the two green deer with two black ones and for the dots, I just coloured them in with a fine tip marker.  Sand the edges and then mat with a piece of black cardstock.

                        

Adhere this with some strong adhesive to the top of your frame.

Next, I took one of the Tim Holtz Trophy Antlers and coloured him.  This was a bit challenging in the beginning.  I thought that a bit of Latte Alcohol Ink would colour it lightly, but for some reason my deer turned a bit purpley pink.  Oops!  Not sure if there was a bit of purple on the my Alcohol Ink lid or it was a reaction with the plastic, but it wouldn't come off, even when I tried to take it off with Alcohol blending solution.  I ended up colouring it with a Copic marker and then rubbing off the excess immediately.  It stayed in the recessed areas, and there's a bit of pink still, but I really like how it turned out.  Whew!  I covered the antlers with Glossy Accents, then poured Tarnished Brass Distress Glitter all over.  To finish him off, I took a small piece of Tim Holtz Boxwood Twine and wrapped it into a small oval.  Next I dabbed a bit of glossy accents on the leaves and sprinkled Rock Candy Distress glitter on them.  To finish off the green wreath, I hung a metal snowflake (a little white paint dabbed on it) from the Tim Holtz Adornment Snowflake pkg.

                     

When that was finished, I hot glued him to the sweater die-cut.

To decorate the bottom of my wood frame, I die-cut greens from the Sizzix Holiday Greens Thinlits die set (658759) from Yuletide papers and Tim's Metallic Kraft papers.  These were lightly sanded a inked.

Instead of gluing these directly onto the frame, I glued them onto a thin strip of cardstock and then adhered this to the frame.  I used a hot glue gun to glue my "Merry" Holiday Letterpress (TH93256) letters together and then these were glued to the greens.  I added in pieces of a holly paper die-cut, and a stamp from the Festive Ephemera pkg on the right side.  I then finished off with one of my deer cutouts from the sweater die, two Jingle Brads (TH93252), a Christmas Typed Token (TH93243), and a bow made from the Metallic Trimmings pkg. (TH93251)

Here's another look at my finished frame.

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial, and it inspires you to look for unusual items to turn into frames or altered items for gifts.  I know Paula (One Lucky Day) has inspired me many times with using different vintage items such as vintage Cigar Boxes, wood boxes , jewelry boxes, all sorts of things that could be frames or shadow boxes.  Just do me a favour, don't buy up all those camera frames.. save a few for me!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by,

Jan