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!

Photo Storage

Hey guys! So lately I've found lots of great deals for printing photos online. I haven't officially ordered the massive amounts of prints I've been needing to, but it got me thinking about the best online sources to store and print your photos—which of course you will use for some creative project! :)

My personal favorite site is Picasa Web Albums. First, because it's associated with Google, and I'm obsessed with pretty much all things Google. But second (and so on) because it's a clean, easy-to-use source that offers the best functionality...in my personal opinion. 

Their newest features let you search through your photos and collaboratively build albums, i.e. you and your friends/family can all upload your photos to the same album. 

Picasa easily lets you share albums and even create slideshows. For example, I've had several people trying to rent apartments, who simply put the photos in a Picasa album and send the link—which is shown directly to the right of the album.

Which brings me to another Picasa feature: privacy settings. You can make your albums public (like for renting an apartment), make all private, or select a specific few friends to have access—all determined for each individual album.

PLUS, you can download compatible programs that let you manage and edit the files without the Internet. Believe me, there's lots of other perks as well. Oh, and for you bloggers...if you operate on a Google account, Picasa will automatically create an album that includes ALL of the photos you have ever posted on your blog. Nice!

When it comes to PRINTING photos online, I don't currently have one site I'm dedicated to. Picasa does collaborate with several sites, but sometimes you can find good deals individually. I used to mostly use Winkflash because they offered a flat shipping rate of 99 cents. But that's changed, and so has my preference. I've also used Snapfish a few times. It's nice to get a feel for the quality and service that various photo printing sites offer. Plus, new customers are usually offered an introductory deal like free photos or shipping. In fact, until Sept. 16, Snapfish is offering 50 free prints and free shipping. 

What sites do you like? 

-- KK Signing off

P.S. Keep the Juices Flowing