I love getting sent cards. I love that someone has taken the time, effort and expense of putting pen to paper.. well, card. But what to do with them once the occasion has passed? You feel bad binning them, but realistically, if you put them in a drawer somewhere, will you ever look at them again? I've probably got cards somewhere from my 18th and 21st birthdays lurking somewhere around my dads house. Note I say probably. There's been a few house moves since then and I have moments at being good at slimming down my packing.
Now without blowing my own trumpet, my 5x7" cards are REALLY lovely quality. I can't take any credit for this, apart from the actual artwork, as my printer Richard does a blinking brilliant job on them. He also does my fine art prints as well, and they genuinely are amazing quality, which is why I use him. (He also will do you a singular print of a piece of artwork, which is great for small businesses like myself when you don't know if you'd sell 25 or 50 of one print).
However, I digress. The reason I have some of my cards printed as a 5x7" is because this is an easy size to buy a picture frame for. It's one of the sizes that you can get photographs printed out in, if people still do that, and frames that size are easy to find even in the supermarkets. I actually picked this frame up in Habitat in Sainsbury's for £7. You know when you pop in for bread and milk and spend a fortune..? Yeah, that's me. I mean for £7 with glass, not plastic, a double mount and able to be hung landscape or portrait you can't really go wrong.
So. A step by step guide to putting a card into a frame. Firstly, make sure the area you're working in is clean and free of dust and hair. I speak from personal experience when I say it's highly annoying to put a picture on the wall and realise that somehow you've got dog fur inside the frame. Yes Effie, I'm looking at you here.
Turn the frame over and release the little metal bits that hold the frame in place. This frame has ones that pivot round, but some of them are solid and just fold over the back board, you may need a butter knife or something to lift them.
Remove the bit of paper that sits behind the mount that tells you the size of the frame and bin or recycle it. Put the card you are using face down inside the mount.
I tend to use a small amount of tape at the top of the card to hold it in place so I can make sure that the picture is level and I can see all the bits that I want, before I put lots of tape on and find out its wonky. This means you can turn the frame around to check before you put the backing board back in place.
If you're happy with the placement then tape the card top and bottom. You can buy proper picture mounting tape, however, good old cellotape will do fine. The spotty tape in the picture is a paper eco tape which is similar to masking tape that I use for packing orders. I believe that the correct way to tape prints is to only tape at the top, however I'm not a professional picture framer and I tape top and bottom so I know its not going to fall down.
Once it's all taped in place put the backing board back in and replace the metal bits so that the board is held in place. Tadahh! You now have a new picture for your home that could have gone to landfill. Instead it's living it's best life being a picture and you'll have a reminder of the occasion the card was sent for and who sent it.
