Vintage Printer Blocks Frame
- By Joan
- March 3, 2016
- 2 Comments
Several months ago I was scanning Ebay, just looking to see what was out there in auction land, and I came upon a Lot of Antique Printing Blocks. I wasn’t looking for printing blocks, but there were over 75 of them and nobody had bid yet. What the heck, I’ll put a bid in, after all, they were only 13 cents a piece.
I really had no intention of winning, I had no project in mind, I didn’t need them and I didn’t particularly want them… and just about as quickly as I placed my bid was how quickly I forgot all about the blocks.
So imagine my surprise, when a week later, I get an email telling me I’m the winning bid. Seriously, nobody else placed a bid?
Now what am I going to do with them? And so they sat until this past week.
At some point, I remembered this wall I had come across when I did my post on recycled wall ideas. If I could just use the same idea on a smaller scale…
When I was at IKEA recently I stocked up on several of their RIBBA frames. At $3.00, they’re a good price and plain enough that I can use it as a base for so many DIY frame projects.
The frame was put on a piece of 1/4 inch plywood to use as a backer board. Traced exactly around the RIBBA frame and then a 3 inch border farther out.
I cut out the backer board, both the interior cut and the wider border.
On the back, Attached the backing to the frame with scrap strips of mdf plywood. These are attached with wood glue and held in place with staples. Make sure you don’t cover any of the hole where the picture will be inserted.
Back on the front, the backing is finished with a dark walnut stain and varnish.
The printer blocks are simply glued in place with hot glue.
To cover up the side edges of the plywood, an outer frame was created with 1×2 pine mitered at the corners.
Before nailing and gluing into place, the outer pine frame was given a coat of black chalk paint.
Final step was to give the chalk paint a coat of wax. If you don’t use chalk paint, no wax is needed.
I still have enough of the blocks to do one more frame unless I come up with another project. Any ideas?
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This is so cute, what a great idea! Thanks for sharing with us at The DIY Collective Link Party! Hope you come back and join us again next thursday! xoxo, Cassie @ Little Red Window
How could no one else have wanted these??? All the better for you because you turned them into fabulous and unique looking frames!