Thrift Store Frames for Prints

My guy's b-day was this past month and being the avid cyclist that he is, I got this vintage reproduction cycling print for him (combining his love for cycling with our shared love for vintage :).

Now, I had to find a frame for him. Nicer frames, especially for larger prints and poster can be quite expensive so my options were to find a cheap poster frame from ben franklins, etc or find a frame from a thrift store. After perusing my usual thrift stores, I found this frame below. It was selling for $15, much better than the original $74.99 price tag on the back. Yikes! And I loved the antique-like finish on the frame, though I didn't care much for the print inside.

So, after purchasing this baby, I went home to take it apart. While my husband was occupied on his bike trainer, I went into my office and did some surgery on this thing. First, I used an exacto knife to cut the back paper along the inside edge of the frame. The mat and the print were sort of glued together so I took them apart.

Then, I had to cut the mat a little bit to frame my print better, so I cut along the inside for the mat basically to make the inside portion bigger. Also, the print was a bit longer than the frame so I folded up some of the bottom so it would fit. I was just about to be done and I was putting the glass back into the frame when I guess I tried to force it in there too quickly and the glass broke in half. Nooo! :(

No worries, I thought I would just have to go to a Ben Franklins and get a new glass piece but discovered a glass piece for this frame would be $35 and I was told that a plexiglass piece would be even more because they would have to ship one in and it's a big shape, etc. While looking through the shop and resigning to the fact that I may just have to go with the cheap poster frames in the end, it dawned on my that I could just use the plexiglass from the cheap frame for my frame. The problem was that my frame was an unusual 20x25 and the closest cheap frame size was 20x28. After talking with the framing person, I learned that I could just score each side of the plexiglass with an exact knife and it would snap right off when you bent it. I found a $6.99 cheap 20x28 poster frame and did just that, taped up the back, and here is the final result. Happy Birthday G!!