Up-cycling ThriFty Art

     as you may have already noticed, i have a thing for making vintage items "new" again. heck, i never even knew it had a name (upcycling), till a couple years ago. i'm sure you can call it all kinds of things~ refurbished, renovated, what have you. whatever it is, I LOVE IT! there is just something soo rewarding about taking an item someone may have just thrown away (basically did if you find it at a thrift store) & making it into a refreshed beautiful creation! :)

my dad has a love of restoring classic cars (there's another name for it "restore", lol). anyways~ i may indeed have him to blame for my kick, so thank you DADDIO! i will be sharing different up cycling adventures on my blog but today's post is dedicated to ART, beautiful art <33

~i do fancy myself an artist of sorts, but aren't we all in someway? i will be posting more about my artwork journey in the near future.~ 

onto the thrift store~ when scanning the art area, i look for anything with a nice frame, large pieces, cool shapes, etc. whatever's on the inside of the frame does NOT matter, that will most likely get painted over. most of the time they're pretty much giving them suckers away. i usually only pay a couple bucks a piece for used art, maybe a lil more if it's something really neat :) a couple examples ~~~>

 looks like something found in a "man cave", i dunno. lol. i loved the natural look of the frame! very rustic :)

this baby was meant for me. i seen it at the thrift store three different times and kept passing it up, until it finally possessed me to save it! i thought it had great potential <33

frames can obviously be kept the same OR painted. i kept the first one rustic but the cream colored one had to go! the insides can almost always be painted over. the best way to go about that is by using the magical substance that is "GESSO"! gesso looks basically like white paint & goes on thick. it makes everything paintable, i mean....pretty much everything. :)

not my hand, just a picture i found of someone gesso'n it up! 

simple as that! make the insert a flat color and then paint whatever your heart desires on it, as if it were a fresh, blank canvas! also, if you don't have any gesso handy, you can just layer white paint on like you would the gesso & cover the original image up that way. gesso is the better option though.

here's what i did with the above two pieces~

 man cave clover became an "om mandala" painting, i thought this went great w/ the wooden frame!

& that flowered number got a complete re-vamp! can't go wrong w/ a black colored frame (used spray  paint) :) i named this one "peace within'".

i know i said it already, BUT i really love up cycling old art! it has so much character, not to mention it saves me from spending a heap of cash on new canvas' (they can be pretty pricey).  the cost of framing a piece professionally is even more pricey (yes, i'm cheap cause i have to be) :) seriously...thrifty stores rock <33

thanx for checkingout my post. 

peace & blessin's to all <3