In The Frame No.5 - Ornate Frame to Wall Clock

4 Materials
$20
1 Hour
Easy

"The cobbler's children have no shoes"...Greg believes whomever said this must have had a wife like me. I have no choice but to agree with him, as I really am a living example of that saying: I am a Project Controls Manager, and my expertise is in time & cost planning and management of multi-billion dollar construction projects. Though I'm one of the best Project Control Managers in the Construction Industry, I just can't stay on schedule in my personal life. Greg's punctuality and my bad habit of being late for everything is the running joke in our lives...so much so that I had to make this clock to ease Greg's job in answering "When?" questions with "Now" so I would be on time for everything. *Affiliate links used in this post*

I know... ridiculous isn't it? At least it makes a great conversation piece :-)

As Greg is getting pretty tired of his role as the alarm clock of our home, he suggested that I should make some pretty clocks, so while I'd adorn our walls with my projects, they would also serve a good purpose...hahaha.

What can I say? I liked the idea so much that I started my search on Pinterest for some inspiration right that evening. I found so many fantastic clock ideas, but two of them really grabbed my attention. One was round and had a really nice weathered stenciled clock face with no frame, and the other one had an ornate frame but nothing special about the clock face.

With the inspiration I got, I first paid a visit to my overflowing frame stash, then to my little clock pile in our basement and I found these two, which I could use for this project. The frame was wood and in quite good condition, and the clock had nicely shaped hands which were the perfect size for the frame I chose. Best of all, I didn't have to buy a new clock mechanism!

I carried on going through the supplies list:

Frame - check!

The clock mechanism - check!

Homemade chalk paint - check!

Greg (to cut the backing board) - check!

Having everything I needed, I started working on the frame. I gave it 3 light coats of my homemade chalk paint in Warm Onyx color. (You can find the recipe for my homemade chalk paint on our blog.)

This is one of those interesting colors that loves surprising me: depending on how you finish it, its hue entirely changes. Seriously!... It is normally a brown color with a grey hint, and stays the same if you just leave it as is or apply clear wax. If you apply dark wax, it turns into dark brown with almost no hint of grey to it. And if you apply white wax, it apparently turns into...well you'll see the final color in a bit, so let's keep that as a surprise till then.

Before I forget, if you like the color, you can find the color code for Warm Onyx on the blog post. Now back to the clock...

Next, I worked on the backing board that Greg cut from 1/4 inch plywood. Before painting it, I found the center of it and drilled the center of the board.

This was so I could install the clock mechanism and check if the board's depth was a good fit for it. After seeing everything was perfect, I took out the clock mechanism and started painting the plywood with 2 coats of DecoArt Chalk Paint in Primitive color. Then just to give a little twist to that subtle color, I whitewashed it using the same method in my toolbox to planter post on our blog.

While waiting for the paint to dry, I prepared and cut the stencils using my Silhouette. I placed the stencils and dabbed 2 light coats of homemade chalk paint with a sponge brush. Once the stenciling was finished I slightly distressed the stenciled areas.

Next, I painted the back of the board in the same color (Warm Onyx), and I waxed the entire backing board (back and front) with white wax. To my surprise that brownish grey paint turned into a beautiful smokey grey with no brown hint to it. As I loved that color, I went ahead and white waxed the entire frame as well.

As everything was painted, I started assembling the whole thing.

For the final touch and to make it more like a store-bought clock, I decided to add some embellishments at the points of 3, 6, 9 and 12. I chose 2 oval-ish shaped and 2 corner type embellishments for that. I cut the oval-ish ones in half...

...and glued those by 6 and 12, and the corner ones by 3 and 9. With that my wall clock was finally finished!

Now it is time for showing you the beauty shots :-)

So how do you like it? Not bad at all is it? Maybe not the best one out there, but handsome enough for me to buy it if I saw it in a store.

What I love most about it is its color. Frankly speaking, I never thought that brownish grey would turn into such an elegant grey, so it was such a wonderful surprise to me. But now that I know how to achieve this smokey grey, I will be using it in more projects.

As usual, here are some close-ups for you to see the details.

Are you wondering what happened to the old round clock's frame? Well...me being me, of course he didn't get discarded. For now he went back to his place in the basement. But hopefully soon enough you'll meet him again with his new role, as I have a cool plan for him :-)

If you are interested in similar crafts & DiY projects, click here to see more crafts & DiY projects from The Navage Patch.

Thank you for reading, and don't forget to visit our blog post for further details and photos on this project!

Handan, xo

Suggested materials:
  • Frame
  • Clock mechanism
See all materials
Handan & Greg @ The Navage Patch
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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Frequently asked questions
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  2 questions
  • Kat Kat on Jan 09, 2020

    Silly question...does it work? Does it tell time?

    Thank you

  • Sheba92766 Sheba92766 on Jan 09, 2020

    Is the frame wood or plastic?

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