Floating Picture Shelf

A floating picture shelf.  My dad built this for us out of scrap wood.  The decorative molding was part of a bundle I bought at a garage sale for $1.00 - the bundle had 10 strips of wood and we used two, paint was left over from the bookshelves/television cabinet project.  Therefore - this project cost me 20 cents!  (and YES, I DO know how lucky I am to have a super handy and willing father with a pile of scrap wood - he makes so many of my crafty dreams into reality)

All of the picture frames are from garage sales - 25 cents to one dollar each.  The wood letters were 25 cents each.   I looked for black and white frames, but a few were just so pretty with detail that I bought them anyway and then painted them.

The 'bones' of the shelf - dad attached 4 wood pieces to the wall, used the others to build the 'box' with the top and bottom pieces of wood, which I pre-painted.  (then I only had to do touch up once the shelf was up on the wall -much easier than painting the whole thing on the wall.)  The molding was added to the front and sides, with a piece of quarter round molding on the back to close the gap between wood and wall so no paper will slip through.