October was my Mom's birthday and my Parent's 38th Wedding Anniversary. I knew I wanted to make them something special that held meaning. Over Labor day weekend I was helping go through my Grams cards and moment's and just happened to stumble upon my parents wedding invitation, wedding napkins!! a bridal shower invitation and a thank you note. I managed to sneak them into my suitcase and took them home with me. I enlisted my partner in crime, Audra, to help me figure out how to best display them. And, one of the most important things, she helped me out by taking them to work and using their paper cutter. I have the cutting skills of a 3 yr old, not even kidding, so I was terrified I would destroy it!
Here is what we started out with. I actually found this frame at Salvation Army and fell in love with the frame and the matting. The Gold in the double mat was perfect for the 1970's color of invitation my parents had. However, I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to cover it!
Or how I was going to take the back off!
I actually asked the lady next to me at the store if she thought the back came off and told her my craft idea, I have no shame when I need help! She thought it was a great idea and totally do able. So last week I brought myself and my tool bag over to Auds to have dinner and craft! And when I say tool bag I mean a tool bag! I was prepared!
I used a box cutter to cut the paper off of the back of the picture. I was rather shocked it was going so well and so easy ( so was Auds) so I made Auds take a picture to document my genius.
After that we had to pry the industrial strength staples back to slide the mat out. I think that was the hardest part. We both had to take turns doing it, as our fingers would get really sore!
Finally it was open and we were able to craft! The Mat was rather stuck to the picture, so we decided to use some light yellow/off white paper that I had brought with me just in case. (See, PREPARED!) please notice all of my tools on the counter.
As prepared as I was, I had forgotten that I kept the napkin for the frame at home, since Audra didn't need to cut it. So we did our best to guestimate the napkin's size and placement.
The finished frame! It is really hard to get a good picture of a picture frame. I took over 20 and sadly these are the best that I got! I think it turned out really neat though!
Last night I had to put on a new hanger for it to hang sideways, and as I was trying to deal with the staples on the back of the frame I managed to slice my thumb and my pinky open. Painful. Every single one of my students today asked me what I had done to my fingers, because of my bandages.
I'm so thankful that Grams kept these items! It was really cool to be able to see my parents wedding invitations and items from way back when!
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