How to shabby chic a mirror frame french style, quick and easy

how to shabby chic a mirror french style, shabby furniture accesories are very popular at the moment, this tutorial shows how to add a little french country style easily.
i found a nice gold painted mirror in my local charity shop for £7.50 this mirror probably dates from the 1970s and has some of that superb Laura ashely style to it. the frame is painted gold with some very nice carved detail making it an ideal candidate for some French style shabby chic painting, first job is to remove the mirror glass by detaching the back plate and retaining clips, be very carefull not to break the mirror during removal and refitting as the are very expensive to replace ,not to mention heaps of bad luck!
after a quick clean and dust I painted the frame with johnstones quick drying acrylic satin finish paint.
no need to be too particular with the paint finish as I'm going to rub it off to reveal some of the gold finish underneath, so rather than allow the paint to dry and then sanding! which would be the usual "shabby chic" technique instead while the paint is still wet i wipe away the colour to reveal some of the gold, the cloth is a dry microfibre and you need to work pretty fast because its a very quick drying finish! its quite hard to overdo this type of effect and the random nature of the drying surface makes for an interesting finish to the project.
what to do if your frame is not already gold painted?
maybe your frame of choice is still wood or simply painted , an easy option you can paint it gold first by either spraying or brushing i think this effect would also look good with a silver or chrome paint .