Cheap to Choice: Framing Vintage Illustrations

This is a guest post by Lara Hightower.

This week’s project: find something creative to do with the tons of ephemera I have stashed in my apartment. Vintage greeting cards, magazines, correspondence, hand-written recipes…but my biggest paper obsession are vintage children’s books.

If I find a children’s book that’s reasonably priced, I pick it up, no matter the condition – there’s always one or two illustrations inside that I know I can use for something. And some of the books give me fascinating glimpses of some of the highly disturbing things kids used to be taught – for example, here’s a passage from a Home Economics text from 1879, when, apparently, we believed WOOL was the solution to all of our problems: “The most healthful clothing for our climate, the year round, is that made of wool. If worn next the skin by all classes, in summer as well as winter, an incalculable amount of coughs, colds, diarrhea, dysenteries, and fevers would be prevented, as also many sudden an premature deaths from croup, diphtheria, and lung diseases.” Ah, yes, swaddle me in wool in the heat of a Chicago summer. Sounds delicious. Want to avoid lockjaw?  “Take a small quantity of turpentine, warm it , and pour it on the wound.” OUCH. Relief from choking? “Break an egg into a cup and give it to the patient to swallow. The white of the egg seems to catch around the obstacle and remove it. If one egg does not answer the purpose, try another. The white is all that is necessary.” First of all, the only thing more terrifying than choking on something would be if, during the process, someone was standing by, trying to force raw eggs down my throat. Second, what the heck does that part about the egg whites being the ”only thing necessary’ mean? What, are you supposed to take the time to separate the yolk from the egg whites while the person is choking?

But I digress. Mostly I’m obsessed with the illustrations in the books. It seems a shame that I keep buying the books for the pictures and then stacking them on the shelves in my craft room, where they end up dusty and lonely. I decided to try and pair them with some of the frames I’ve picked  up over the years. There are a lot of cool frames out there at thrift stores and yard sales, and you can usually grab them for pretty cheap. One weird thing I’ve noticed is that a cool frame with an ugly picture in it will often be priced less than a plain frame without anything in it – it’s as though the pricer can’t quite see past the ugliness.

Since I found out this week that I’m soon to be moving into a booth at the antique mall we’ve been on the waiting list for (I’m going into business with my SIL and mom and I couldn’t be more excited!) , I thought it was a perfect opportunity to try out some ideas I had for framing illustrations. I’ve got some vintage baby nursery stuff to put in the booth so I decided to start with projects that would be appropriate for a nursery – and since the booth is back home, in Fayetteville, Arkansas (Bible Belt Country – KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!), I started with a couple of vintage children’s prayer books with charming illustrations – “Three Prayers” and “Prayers for Children.”

1. The first frame came with a mat with three openings. I wanted to try for a custom mat look , so I chose my illustrations and matched them with some art paper that I had hanging around. To cover the mats, I placed the mat on the back side of the art paper and cut around it, allowing about two inches of extra space on all sides.

2. I then cut holes out of the center of the mat openings, once again allowing about two inches to be folded over. 3. If you make a diagonal cut from the corner of the mat to the corner of the paper, you’ll get a nice, neat fold when it’s time to glue the paper down to the rear of the mat.

4. I started folding at the top of the mat, gluing the edges with a hot glue gun. (HOT glue fun. Don’t be seduced by these newfangled “Low Heat” glue guns. You cannot trust a glue gun bond unless you have burned yourself at least three times in the course of a project. Seriously, the bond is not nearly as strong with a “Low Heat” glue gun.)

5. Once you get the top edge of the paper glued down, you have to be very careful to keep the paper taut as you glue the rest of the edges. I found it easiest to glue the inside of the mat openings and then do the sides and the bottom. But always, always, always be monitoring the smoothness of the paper on the front of the mat – it’s easy to get it wrinkled on the front if you’re not paying attention. Also, make sure you’re working on an absolutely flat surface.

6. After papering the mats, I painted the frames to match.  The two smaller ones, in particular, needed some sprucing – take a look at that gilt edging; this frame has delusions of French grandeur and needed to be taken down a peg or two. I liked the way the cheerful yellow contrasted with the ornate carving on the frame

7. After putting the frames back together, I backed them with my favorite brown Kraft paper to finish them as neatly as possible.

And that’s it. Now I can just hope that “If I die before I wake” doesn’t give a child nightmares like it did me when I was little. I don’t need that on my conscience, man. Amen.

Lara Hightower is a yard sale freak who spends way too much time collecting crazy things she can’t find space for that will soon be in her antique mall booth.