Frame Project

I have this window frame that my mom gave me several years ago that she told me I could use for pictures.  It's a 6 panel window frame, so she thought it'd be good for getting 6 of my photos up on my wall (I'm super bad about getting my favorites printed and/or framed).  I agreed and took the frame not knowing completely what I wanted to do with it.

Over the summer I decided I wanted to take action and at least get the frame stained to a good color, then figure out what pictures I wanted to print and what sizes they needed to be.

(sorry for the lame cell phone photo)

In November I gots to thinking about how maybe this could be used as something more than just a photo display, but still a photo display as well.  So I opened up my Photoshop and made myself a little mock-up of what this frames structure was - and started filling in the blanks.  I just grabbed a few images of mine, not necessarily the exact ones I want to use (I may want to explore some Hawaii options).

I thought this could be a cute/fun thing to hang in a kitchen of a place we lived together - 

I wanted to keep some photos and I had the idea to make a cork board out of all the wine corks I had been saving over the years - in addition to that I had a decal that says I {heart} Minneapolis that I wanted to stick on a piece of glass in there.  Anyhow - this is what I came up with:

Actually this isn't exactly what I came up with, but one of the things I ended up with - in this case it would involve taking out one of the inside frame pieces and making the cork board section larger.  You can buy chalkboard paint, so that's the chalkboard part (I was running all my ideas by Steve, so I obviously had to add cute little notes to him).  He threw back the idea of replacing the chalkboard with a white board, as they also make white board paint.

So then I played around a bit and thought maybe having a larger section for writing (chalkboard/whiteboard), would be better... and then I show you this:

Well, that is fine and dandy... but it kind of takes away from the cork part of it.  Now, in all honestly and the age of smart phones, having a cork board doesn't really make a lot of sense to me - I don't write many hand written notes anymore and I couldn't think of what else I'd want to post on it - but really I wanted to have a larger section of cork because I think it looks cool.  So then I was like - well, I don't NEED to put that I Love Mpls decal on it's own pane; how else can I work it?  I came up with this:

Why not put the decal on the white board?!  Duh.  This allows me to have a large white board and a large cork board.. and I can still stick a couple of my favorite shots in there.

So, obviously these are Photoshop creations and it's yet to become a reality, but it's something that I really need to begin thinking about again.. because I simply don't want this frame laying around forever!

Which of these grab you?  Any ideas that I haven't thought of?  Do you love it/hate it?  Don't worry, I will post pictures of the final product - right now just looking for some honest feedback.