Turquoise

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I just love how this turned out! It started out to be a card until it got to be so darn cute that I felt it deserved a frame. I have a wide white frame but it's so delicate, it needs a thin white frame. This is what prompted me to hop online the other night and order a whole new mess of metal frames. I mostly bought black and white since they are the most universal. I can spray paint them other colors if I need to but I've had minor problems with the paint chipping off. I've tried sealing them but overall, I've decided I don't want to take the time to perfect frame painting. I'd rather be stitching.

I have a whole shelf of frames that I've either been given through Freecycle or bought ridiculously cheap - that are rectangular. So I need to work on some rectangular designs. I haven't tried yet, so I sure hope I can get my mind out of square and round. It feels firmly entrenched!

I had a woman ask me at last weekend's craft show if she'd have trouble framing a card she wanted to buy - is it an odd size. "Yes, it is," I said, "It's 4-1/4" x 5-1/2"." But I told her she could frame it in a float frame and I explained to her what that was. So when I was at Michael's the next time I bought a 6" x 8" float frame and an 8" x 10" clip frame to see if I knew what I was talking about. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet. I'm not sure I can live with different margins, for lack of a better word, on the sides than on the top & bottom. But maybe I can.

It doesn't have to be a float frame, one could frame it in any type or size frame, mount it on co-ordinating paper. A float frame came to mind because I once had a customer show me a square float frame she bought at Target. If I ever see those, I'm buying a truckload. Or one can have it custom framed. Custom framing isn't cheap but I truly love a well-framed piece.

That reminds me of a vendor in the same room at the museum craft show that made frames. Two women actually but one in particular bought some stuff from me so we got to talking. They each having a framing shop in their homes so I took both their cards. The one I was talking to sold framed tatted pieces and doilies - just beautiful. And the other woman offered frames with mats that had cut-outs for shells and other objects. They were all very cool. I've thought of upgrading my frames to something special and unique like these women make but I'd have to test the market a little bit to see if people would pay those prices. I think they'd be gorgeous though.

Anyway, I was going to set a couple of framing examples on my table since I hear that a lot, that people are going to frame my cards. Then I thought I could offer frames - but then I'm in the framing business. Oy. See how one thing leads to another in my mind?

Time to get to work. I have to shoo that little Venus cat off my pile of paper snowmen. Eighty-five (cluttered) flat surfaces in this studio and she has to pick this (cluttered) surface on which to sit. I don't think people will mind a little cat hair glued to their snowmen, will they?

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