DIY FILM REEL DECOR
Earlier this summer, while we were in Fresno, cousin Alyssa gave us some old film reels. We were super excited! Alyssa had reels left over from ones she had cleaned up and hung in her home. Since Husband is an animator we thought the film reels would be perfect decor for our home too.
Rusted film reels with melted film is no easy task to clean. Husband used a variety of different tools to remove the film. Because parts of the film were melted Husband had to pry pieces apart.
If the film was loose and not melted we could work together to pull the film off. I held the reel while husband would unwind the film. However if the film was melted, Husband would have to go back to other tools. Husband has more patience then me when working on projects like this. He works really hard to preserve pieces of film we might use later and maintain the integrity of the reel. I, however, have a tendency to just get in there and start banging on things... I should take some pointers from Husband.
It was a bit like a treasure hunt as we removed film. Every once in a while Husband would stop and start to inspect the film to see what images lay hidden.
By the end of the final film removal we had a trash bag full of film. We're saving it for another project down the road. We've been bouncing ideas off each other, but haven't settled on one yet. I'm so excited for whatever we come up with!
These two images are some of the treasures we found. The bottom one with the "damsel in distress," is my favorite.
The final step to prepare the film reel was to remove the rust. This was super tough too. We tried a variety of methods, but I think the one that worked best was comet, steel wool, and a lot of scrubbing. Husband filled the bath tub with some water, added the comet, and let it sit before he started scrubbing.
We were really happy with our final film reel. We love how it's rough with lots of character; you can tell it has a story to tell. We have one more film reel to work on, we're looking forward to adding it to our home.