I Matted and Framed this Drawing

At Thanksgiving, my aunt gave my mom and all her sisters a drawing that was made from a photo taken at my Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary celebration. I told my mom I would frame the drawing for her as a Christmas present. Well, the drawing was temporarily misplaced. When 10 siblings exchange gifts at Thanksgiving and try to keep them all straight, it’s not easy! But around Valentine’s Day, my mom told me she had found the drawing and she gave it to me to frame.

Here's the drawing. It was done on an 8.5 X 11 piece of paper.

At first I thought I’d find a nice frame and cut a mat for it. But I found so many frames that included mats, that I selected one that had a nice double mat. But the opening of the mat didn’t quite fit the size of the drawing. A little too much of the drawing was cut off on each end using the mat that came with the frame.

I did decide to cut my own mat. I don’t do this very often so it’s kind of fun when I do it. I had quite a bit of a pretty blue mat board on hand, so I had thought that would be what I would use if I did cut my own mat. Here's what the drawing looked like in my mat.

While the pre-cut mat wasn't terrible, I liked the fact that my mat didn't cut off any of the drawing. If the artist was going to include arms in the drawing, I might as welll show all of the arms, right? Here's what my finished framed drawing looked like. I was very pleased with how it turned out! I love my mat cutter! It's so easy to use. And so much less expensive than having pictures matted and framed elsewhere.