DIY Chicken Wire Narrow Frame

Family faces are magic looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future.
                                                                                                       ~Gail Lumet Buckley

I've been working, ever so slowly, on our family photo wall gallery.  I think for the most part, I've found many of the photos I want to hang on it and all the larger ones are in their frames and ready to go.  But it's the smaller pesky ones with other relatives, cousins and candid shots that I wasn't sure what to do with.  I decided against enlarging them and came up with another idea...

A frame with chicken wire and small clothes pins to hold the photos in place!  I finally found a frame large enough to hold plenty of photos (see the photo below of the brown wooden frame).  I was able to get this for, literally, only a couple of dollars...

So after sanding it, I painted it with Folk Art Medium Gray craft paint, then painted a whitewash over it (half white craft paint and half water)...

After everything was dried, I got out the chicken wire that was laying around from my last chicken wire project, and started to staple it on.  DUH, now I know why many frames with chicken wire are wider and not as narrow as the one I bought!  It can be done, but there wasn't much room to work with...

After everything was good and secured around the edges, I trimmed off the excess wire...

And then trimmed some more...

I used one of the finished edges of the wire, along one side of the frame.  For those who sew, think of it as the salvaged edge of chicken wire.  Just staples and no trimming involved...

Then I took duck tape, tore it into thin strips and covered the edges of the chicken wire on the back of the frame.  After just painting some walls, I don't think Mr. Cottage or I would be too thrilled to see it getting scratched up with all that wire.  Don't you just love all the possibilities of what you can do with duck tape!  It's never ending...

I'm only sharing a portion of the frame because it hasn't been hung on the wall yet and I need lots of mini clothespins...

I'll be so thrilled when this huge project is finished.  It's been going on for months and I'm anxious to get started on another huge project after Labor Day.

I'm linking up with AKA Design  and The Scoop.  Come over and have a peek.