Matting Made Easy

I'm going simple today with technique that's easy & looks great -- plus, it's a lot cheaper than the alternative.

I'm definitely one who has never had a picture "professionally" matted. If a frame comes with a mat, then I might use it, but unless it's a really nice piece of art I couldn't justify paying for it. Plus, even if you just buy a single mat at the store, they're not cheap. (Or maybe I just am...) So if you're like me, consider matting to-be-framed pictures on cardstock! We do it for scrapbooking all the time, but I think it's overlooked for framing.

I've done this a few times before, mostly out of necessity/lack of materials, but was reminded of it's greatness while reading this post on Thrify Decor Chick. (It's a long post, so this is the picture to look for.)


She uses colored poster board that matched the color of her walls. At first the reflection looked like the larger picture had stripes on the bottom half of the paper which I think would be work well too.

The ones I've done are really simple. Black & white even...

My first time doing this I was when I made one of these picture frame boxes for our wedding reception for the cards to go in.

I was trying to do everything ultra cheap and decided to use some 4x6 pictures that I had already printed from snapfish (I think) with my favorite white border. I had a bunch of extra 12 x 12 black textured cardstock leftover from another project that I cut to size and glued the photos to them.

I loved how it looked with the white border from the photos.

For this one, I had used my mom's embroidery machine to make this for Jeremy for Christmas one year and just matted it on torn scrapbook paper and white cardstock. Easy right?

Just a start, but tons of possibilities with this one. I've got lots of empty frames sitting around that I'm excited to fill with cardstock-mounted-images. Hope this helps to keep the juices flowing!

What I did...peg board

You can buy precut peg boards at hardware stores in lots of different sized or you can buy a huge one and have it cut into whatever size you want. They are by the table tops.

Mine was a 4' by 2'. I bought this a long time ago and had it sitting it my closet for awhile but I think it was only like 6 dollars - def less than 8.

1. I put in on my handy 6' lifetime table and sanded it really hard. It had a think finish so I did it a few times. If I did it again I would probably put something under to catch the dust but I just wiped it up and vaccummed.

2. Next I primed it BUT I made a HUGE mistake. I used NEWSPAPERS under the board. DO NOT DO THAT. Stupid! Stupid! After I painted it the beg board totally stuck to the paper and I had to rip it off - imagine having to tear paper off EVERY HOLE. So DON'T DO THAT!

3. After realized what a stupid thing I did I went to Lowes and got a plastic drop cloth and picked up my paint colors - I matched the paint colors to my fabric and to the desk color. They have these tiny paint cans now - I think they are 1/2 pints but they are PERFECT small projects like this and painting picture frames etc etc. They were on sale for 3 dollars each. I love it!

I put my quart paint can in the picture so you can see how small they are.

4. I THOUGHT I would use a stencil and had an idea of what I wanted. I went to Michaels to look at stencils and they were 11 dollars! Yikes. I didn't want to pay that - it didn't seem worth it and I didn't have a coupon. That ended up being a blessing because just a little to the right they had foam stamps and one of them was what I wanted AND it was .99! I got two, one for each color since I didn't know how they would wash up with regular paint.

5. Decide the color you want the main part. I decided green. I would love to see if it would looke better in the pink or yellow color...Mmmm. I did 2 coats

6. After everything dried I got stamped one color of paint. I used the peg lines to know about how far apart to stamp and did one color first and then went back and did the second color. To add the color I used a foam brush (.25 at craft stores) and "painted" the paint on the stamp.

I didn't want it perfect so I tried not to make them line up EXACTLY and used more paint on some and less paint on others.

I have yet to mount them but I got 1/2 inch thick wood to mount them. I got it in the trim section at the hardware store - it was with the moulding etc.

What I did - furniture re-do

For any of my projects I am not sure about the way you are supposed to do them but I know the way I did them.

I had never painted furniture before - I wasn't sure the process or how hard is what going to be etc etc but really it is easy IF you have the right supplies.

1. The first thing I did is to take all the hardware off.

2. Then since I was doing this INSIDE my house I put an old sheet under the desk and table.

3. I had some sandpaper in my scrapbooking supplies - it was fine or very fine - my dad said it would work and it did. I sanded the entire desk. I was surprised that it went a lot faster then I thought it would and it was fun. I had the kids help- they LOVED it. It was a good way to get out aggression. I didn't sand it a ton but enough that it was a little rough so the paint would stay.

3b. I cleaned it with a wet rag and vacuumed it to get all the dust off. If there were any smooth spots I quickly sanded them.

4. Then I primed the desk. I actually found this primer in my garage from a previous owner - It said it was for wood. I doubt you have to use special primer but this is what I had on hand and I wanted to start RIGHT AWAY!

I took my time - primed it one night while the kids were asleep and painted it the next night

5. Finally the fun part! I got to select my paint and splash color all over that baby. I knew I wanted blue. I got Swim by Valspar at Lowes in high gloss. So fun. It went fast. I ended up doing two coats over the course of a couple of days.

6. Trip to Lowes to select my hardware - I got a grass pattern that will match one of my fabrics. The holes matched up where the old hardware was so I didn't have to putty the holes, sand and redrill. I have wood putty if anyone needs to borrow it...:)

7. Then I reassembled.

Ta da. Done. It sounds like a long process but it went really fast and like I said I didn't do it all at once but I was done in a weekend.