Old Gifts Made New

February has always been a romantic month. It can be difficult to express exactly how you feel with a gift to a loved one. You could splurge on jewelry, spring for flowers, or have a night out with a romantic dinner. The problem with all of these things is that everybody does that. Maybe you yourself have done these same things in the past. Maybe when you go out for that valentine’s dinner, you’re stuck in line with everyone else with the same old idea. It’s time for something new.

Custom framing gives you that opportunity to express yourself in a new and unique way. This month, I worked on just such a piece. This customer happens to be a creative person just like me. In the past, he hand made cards expressing his love for his wife on a variety of occasions. These wonderful gems were certainly appreciated, but what do you do with them after that? This sort of thing has just that personal touch that you want in such a gift, but serve little function after the gift has been received.

A custom frame can change all that. Working with the customer, together he and I chose just the right mats and frame to compliment the tastes of his partner in life. We were to frame three of the pieces together in one frame. These three pieces were airbrushed on thick illustration board, and their odd shape didn’t lend themselves well to the typical square cut mat opening.

So we decided to float the art on top of the mat. In addition, we gave the whole piece greater dimension by raising the art up—each piece on a separate level. I do this by cutting small pieces of foam core to go behind the art. The little pieces of board are cut small enough so that you don’t see them, and the give the art the illusion of floating off the backing and hovering in space behind the glass. We then chose a double mat to go around the whole of the piece, and raised it up with the foam core board to also hover over the soft, suede backing mat.

It seemed, however, that no matter how we arranged the three pieces, something was lacking from the composition. There always seemed to be a large area of extra space in the design because the three pieces suggested a triangular layout, and picture frames are rectangular!

This is where my creativity comes into play. The solution was to add a fourth element to the piece. In the upper left corner, I suggested to the customer that we add a sun-shaped design to the mat cut. I can do elaborate designs like this with the help of my robotic mat cutter. I quickly sketched out a few designs on the spot to give the customer an idea of what it would look like. I proposed we take advantage of the multi-tiered design and the depth it created. Some of the sun’s elements would fall each on three levels of the design, taking advantage of the depth of the piece, and fitting perfectly with the celestial elements suggested in the art itself.

The results were outstanding! The design is completely unique. What’s more, the cost of adding little elements like this to the design is next to negligible. You can not get this anywhere else. I designed the mat from scratch, not a pre-made pattern. The elements were custom made specifically for the needs of the customer, and no one else will ever have that same design hanging in their home.

You can have an equally special and unique piece for your home as well. Valentine’s Day may be over, but you don’t ever need an excuse to express how special and unique your feelings for someone are with a gift as personal as this. It would even make it more special to give a gift for no reason! You don’t need a holiday to tell someone you love them in a new and attractive way.

You don’t have to be a creative person. I’ve got that covered for you. Stop in and see me. I can make this happen for you.

Return of the Bear Claw Mat

The piece I wrote about last time is one of those things that I enjoy about creativity and craft. When it is completed, I can sit back and marvel at the attractive thing I have created. When things are fun to design and create, they sometimes have a tendency to look like they were fun to do. It’s a sensation that carry’s on to those who view it, and in this case it did so with the customers who now own the piece.

They returned almost immediately for more, they were so pleased with the initial results. The “Tomahawk Prayer” seemed to immediately suggest to our customer a pair of possible companion pieces. They would be smaller, satellite pieces. They would be completed in the same style, and each hang on either side of the main piece.

Our customers returned with an actual tomahawk, a pair of obsidian arrowheads, and a poem, the Tomahawk Prayer itself. For these objects, we would create a pair of shadowboxes. We chose a similar, rustic looking frame that was just a bit smaller in its profile than the original piece. We used the same mat colors, to further tie the pieces together. In addition, I would be using the same exact bear-claw border design as I used on the main piece. The design itself required only a little alteration to fit the new size of the frames, but the result is a nicely matched set that can lay out the theme of any room it hangs in.

I altered the mat cut design and cut the new mats in short time. Since we were assembling a shadow box, we chose to mount the objects directly on top of the mat. There would only be need to cut an opening for the poem, to be mounted normally under an arrowhead in one of the pieces.

The frame profile was standard, not deep like we needed for a shadowbox to fit the objects inside. I can however easily convert any frame profile into a shadowbox with the addition of an extender on the back. It’s simply a box that we can add to the back of any frame, and we can make it as deep as needed to accommodate most anything you need to have framed. I then build up the walls on the inside out of some of the mat board we are using. This gives the inside of the piece a finished look, covering the raw wood of the extender box.

The objects themselves I mounted by sewing them directly to the mat they were to be mounted on. All I do is loop some strong monofilament wire around the piece, and secure it through holes in the mat. The wire and the holes I try to strategically place to be as secure, yet as inconspicuous as possible. I like mounting objects in this way. It secures the piece nicely in place while avoiding messy adhesives that might damage or alter an object in its use. I can sew down most anything, from arrowheads, to baby gowns, to sports jerseys.

Almost finished with the piece, I give it one final look-over to ensure we have something worthy of display along side the main picture we had framed previously. I determine that I don’t like the look of the boxers at this point. The rustic wood of the frame moulding has a bluish-grey tone that suggests old, weathered wood. The bright new natural tones of the wood box extender clashes with it, and distracts the eye away from where we want the viewer’s attention: on the art. So I break out my paints. I keep a set around the shop. You’ll never know when you’ll need to paint something when you’re a creative person like me.

I am quickly able to mix up a batch of acrylic into an exact match of the weathered moulding, and apply it in light washes to the box. The light washes of the paint seep into the unprimed wood, letting the natural knots and grain show through. This gives the extender box the same weathered look of the moulding, and now the entire piece blends together unassumingly. This allows the objects we framed to take center stage in a rustic, yet coordinated look.

It’s little details like this that I enjoy custom adding to the pieces I do. It gives my work a unique appearance that you simply can not get at any other frame shop. There are many components that can be bought pre-fabricated and assembled into a custom frame. You can’t buy pre-fab creativity, however. Though at my shop, I can produce it for you on the spot if needed.