Fabric Frames and Mattes

I sort of mentioned this craft before, but I thought I might expand on it and show some pictures of how I did it (even though I'm sure you could figure it out on your own). This is a cheap and really simple way to use scraps from your favorite fabrics and to bring color or tie a room together. The matte below is for a 4x6 picture and cost .50! The unfinished wood frame above cost only $2.00 and is wrapped in one of the larger scraps of floral chiffon. As a side note, I don't have kids yet, so my sweet pup, Pearl, is the subject of a good bit of my photos. And yes, that is Lord of the Rings in the background...I admit I'm a nerd.

First, I positioned the frame/matte face down over the desired part of the fabric (face down also) and freehand cut with a rotary cutter ½-1 inch around the outside of the frame/matte. It doesn’t have to be perfect because that extra fabric will be glued to the back of the frame where no one will see it. I hot glued the ½-1 inch fabric borders one side at a time to the back of the frame, making sure it is pulled taut. Then I freehand cut about ½-1 inch inside the matte. With a rectangle frame/matte, I cut a slit from the inside corner to the frame on all four corners and pulled taut and hot glued it to the frame. With the circle frame/matte, I made many slits about 2 inches apart from each other. Each slit should be glued one a time so you can control how tight the fabric is pulled over the frame/matte. The bottom left picture shows this step. When you’re done, there should be no wrinkles or gathering of fabric on the front of the frame/matte.