PROJECT: Miniature Art

Victorians really didn't like to have any vacant wall space so today I made miniature art to hang on the walls of the library.  The two that are the subject of this blog entry are the small ones hanging just to the left of Evangeline.  The picture on the far left, in the very dramatic frame, was purchased at an antique store.  The miniature tapestry is one of a pair that I won on Ebay (keywords search: "small French tapestry") and they are actually real tapestries that were meant to be sewn in to throw pillows, or, a perfect size for Barkley manor!  I still need to make a hanging rod for it to make it look better.  The picture on the far right in the oval gold frame is actually a postcard that came with the Tonner Metrodolls Gothic Romance doll (google it if you aren't familiar with it, it's awesome, and they still have some for sale on the metrodolls blog).  It's a postcard of the original sketch of the doll.  That outfit fits the plastic Evangeline, which is why I bought the doll, and I framed the postcard and hung it in he library.  Surely when Evangeline stumbled on the outfit in an armoire in the attic she recognized it from the portrait in the library!

Anyway, let's get started.  To begin with, I needed some frames.  Ebay keywords search was "miniature victorian frame" and I won this cool set for only $5.

I have plenty of oval frames already so I decided to work with the rectangular ones.  To begin with I spray-painted them with a black primer and then got out my Krylon gold-leafing marker:

Shake the pen, remove the cap, press the nib down on to a piece of wax paper, freezer paper, or some type of disposable plastic until you get a little pool of ink.  Then dip the tip of your index finger in the ink and rub it over and into the raised surfaces of the frame:

This gives the frame a tarnished gold look.  Next, I used little Dover art stickers:

This little book of stickers is only $1.50 and Gainsborough is a perfect match for Barkley Manor! I  applied the stickers directly to the cardboard that comes with the frame.  In this case, the stickers were the exact size needed for the frame so I didn't even need to trim anything!

The finished art work:

Barkley Manor library now has two Gainsboroughs in it's collection: