Remember this?
This was my first and only thrift store find. I found it when I was 15 years old or so, exactly as-is and never saw a need to change it.
But after redecorating the guest bedroom, I decided I had had enough of the pink matting. I wanted something cooler.
So this past weekend, I took my little print out of its frame for the first time. Except it wasn’t an art print as I had originally thought! It was actually a songbook from the year 1919 with the full song “Mandy” by Irving Berlin inside! I’ve never discovered something so exciting before, even though it’s not in great condition and it isn’t worth anything, I felt like I had my own little treasure!
I did a little research on the song and of course, YouTube had a version of it!
I was strolling out one evening by the silvery moon
I could hear someone singing a familiar tune
So I stopped awhile to listen
Not a word I wanted to miss
It was just somebody serenading
Something like this
Mandy there’s a minister handy
And it sure would be dandy
If we’d let him make a fee
So don’t you linger
Here’s the ring for your finger
Isn’t it a humdinger
Come along
and let the Wedding chimes
bring happy times
for Mandy and me.
Cool, right?
So anyway, I still wanted to reframe it, so Mom had the wonderful idea to use some pretty paper from Paper Source that I loved! I had bought a few options:
Ooooh, pretty, right?
I narrowed it down to the paisley and the cherry blossoms, and eventually picked the cherry blossoms. I don’t know if this is the way others might tackle this project, but here is what I did:
I placed my mat over the paper and cut enough so there would be overlap to fold over the edges. I cut it a little close with this…you might want to be slightly more liberal.
When I had the paper cut to size on the outside, it was time to cut it to size on the inside. I used a super scientific measuring system for this…a Japanese book that I thought appropriate for the cherry blossoms.
I cut as straight as I could around the book using my rotary cutter. It was far from perfect.
At this point, I turned the matting and paper over and cut corner slits so the paper could be folded over.
I folded and cut the excess off so it wouldn’t get too bunchy.
Then I just started folding and gluing using an all-purpose adhesive from Martha Stewart.
All glued! How did it turn out?
Not too shabby!
How did it look with the songbook?
It’s pretty cool! I don’t know if I’ll keep it like this forever, but now that I know just how easy of a project this is, I could easily change it up as I see fit! The whole project took less than 20 minutes and I had fun breaking out the glue and pretty paper.
What do you think? Would you take on a project like this?
