Mad About Matting!

Okay, I am tired of the same old boring mattes you have to choose from when you go to a frame shop or your local Michael's craft store. All the dull mattes scream circa 1980-ish. No thanks! So, while I was drooling over the spectacular pink wrapping paper at Target a while back, I thought maybe I could incorporate it somehow into my house. After retuning home and still wondering what to do with the paper I had left behind it came to me! Framing! I hurried back and bought two rolls, then proceeded to revamp my black and white pictures I had hanging of my parents. I simply traced the current matte onto the paper and cut the excess of the wrapping paper with a very sharp exacto knife and metal straight edge. Finally, I stuck it to the front of the old matte and layered it all back together.

Now they really pop against my light yellow walls. I love pink and yellow together 4 ever!

Okay, so I cheated here. I bought a piece of semi expensive (about $5.00 for one sheet) Madori paper at a bead shop in Raleigh. Again, I did not quite know what I was going to do with it. The clerk said I should use it to wrap a gift. Well, that's great, but that better be one hell of a gift to one hell of a special person. I thought I might cut out a replacement for a lamp shade but no that was not it. I needed a pop of turquoise in my living room and it came to me. Matte it up!

I took my very dear painting my grandfather did of my first pet Leroy and decided to re frame him and the matte. Can you stand it?!!! I love that there are birdcages juxtaposed with a cat painting! I cannot take any of the credit, Karen at Karen's Custom Framing here in Goldsboro, managed to beautifully add the paper to the matte board in some easy (but sounded confusing) process and voila a new painting. Sorry, I should have had a before and after so you could truly appreciate the final result. I will keep this in mind in the future.