Pretty as a postcard

A few posts ago I mentioned the great postcards my Grandmother had left me.  I also mentioned I wanted to frame a couple and that I was going to make my own frames and just forget the glass.  Today I made more progress towards the completion of that dream.  It had seemed like it should be easy to cut some card stock to make my own mattes.  Haha!  It soooooooo was not!

At first I started with a template.  I had traced it onto the card stock exactly where I wanted my opening to be.  Then I lined up a wooden ruler, the kind with the strip of metal on the end, and attempted to make a straight cut with an x-acto knife.  I say attempted because no matter how carefully I went, that damned edge wasn't exactly straight.  It probably would have passed inspection from anyone else, but I'm always hyper-critical of my own work.

So I went back to the drawing board and set out to find a paper cutter with the little-razor-blade-slider-do-hickey.  I found one at Target.

This was the key to straight lines!  Finally!

Once I had the mattes I chose my pictures.  I picked three of my favorites and just taped them onto the matting.  I think they look pretty good but only the finished project will really tell.

Next I headed out to the garage with my much-loved Dremel and my antique hacksaw (gifted to me from my Dad from his extensive tool collection.)  I marked the boards I picked up and used the Dremel's saw attachment to cut as far through the board as I could, then I finished with the hacksaw.  I haven't sanded, glued, or filled in the joints yet, I'll tackle that another night.  But overall I think I've got a nice start.

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I picked up a nice dark chocolate spray paint.  I think a set of three of these will look nice on my dark forest green walls.  To get some perspective on size, the opening in my matte is a little larger than 3x5.

I also picked up some much thinner strips that I might use to "dress up" the frame, but I want to see what it looks like when its done and painted before I give myself more work.  I'll probably finish the first one Wednesday afternoon.