We are doing Pride and Prejudice, which has "reveals" of characters all throughout. My director wants the reveals to occur in 6ft. picture frames, to indicate that the reveals are happening outside of the plot line (if that makes sense). With this being Pride and Prejudice, I would like the frames to be gold. We would need 6 of these frames to accomodate all the reveals. This production is for a home school co-op. My backstage budget is between $3-400 for the whole thing. I really have little money to make these frames. The only idea i have been able to come up with is making the frames out of 4 x 8 sheets of cardboard and brace them with some thin strips of wood. I figured I would create decorative edges and paint them gold. The problem is time. I have so many other things I have volunteered to make for the production. Does anyone have any other ideas for the frames? I think wood would be too heavy and expensive. I just dread making 6 of these things. I'm starting to think that when you have a small budget, what you save with money (in creatively making things) you end up spending in time.

Thanks for any input.

i think its been said on here about fake food, that with a good paint job...things can look truly realistic. We just finished using some great hard-board insulation (the pink kind) to make the large spaces of stone wall for Cyrano. The best thing about this insulation is that sheet by sheet its really cheap, easy to cut, a little bit sturdier than cardboard, and is moldable with a small blow torch!! We melted the rock pattern into it..painted it up...and it looks amazing! You could melt the fancy design into the pink board, spray it gold, and you would have a great life size picture frame!

Okay ... here comes the teacher in me ... Why not get the kids involved and let them cover your cardboard "frames" with dried pasta?  Then paint the whole thing gold.  (I can imagine spirals around the edges and macaroni lining the rest of it.)  It sounds weird, but painted pasta actually looks pretty good from a distance.  Your local market may even donate it to you.