English Mount(ed)

In a time before I existed, my mother was a flight attendant for Braniff. That airline went out of business--quite dramatically, a few days before I was born. Call my mother if you want to hear the whole story. I digress though, because the point is my mother got to travel all over the world (and I'm a well-travelled fetus, too--making it to Europe, Nebraska, Brazil and Korea all pre-birth). Once when in London, she got a set of framed prints that were created to celebrate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. I think that means that all of Great Britain was celebrating 25 years of QE2, but I'm not 100% on that fact. (On an unrelated note, my mother was always popping back and forth across the pond and got some really cool items celebrating the Charles/Diana wedding, though they are too valuable for any crafting updates...)

Unfortunately for my mother, the frames on the above prints were ugly and they languished in a closed drawer for the past three decades. The drab green frames really dated them as relics from the 1970s and didn't do anything to accentuate the colors in the prints, either. And olive green is hardly a royal color, nor is it suited my decorating tastes. So I splashed some super-metallic gold paint from Elliott's True Value Hardware all over those puppies and they are good to go! On Saturday, they broke their 31 year hiatus of living in various drawers and boxes and can now be spotted on the wall next to my desk.

Pictured above are two of the three prints. Getting a good photo of the "nook" area surrounding my desk was next to impossible, so I had to settle for just showing two of the frames. The print you are missing is of a boat sailing under London Bridge. The top print is the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben shown from across the Thames & the lower print is a royal procession approaching Buckingham Palace.


I love vintage finds, especially when you know the object's story and can relate to it personally. And seeing as these came straight from mom, how much more personal can I get?