Hand Painted Photo Matting

Hello friends! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I’m excited to introduce you to the last of our MFTM contributors, Siri from Of Pumpkin Thieves and Buffalo Wings. Siri and I actually attend church together and she was my daughter’s beloved chorister prior to having her adorable baby. Siri will be sharing home decor tips, tricks, and tutorials each month…I am so excited, aren’t you?! Today she is sharing an awesome idea- Hand Painted Photo Matting. 

 

So just to introduce myself a bit since this is my first time guest posting on Kara’s awesome blog, 

I’m Siri from Of Pumpkin Thieves and Buffalo Wings

I am a full time mommy to my Little Muppet and the choco labs. 

I am married to my dream guy. 

I love strawberries in my lemonade. 

Whales and tigers are my favorite animals. 

I’m a certified special education teacher and a photographer!

Bascially I think life is too short to not do the things you are passionate about. 

 

 

One of the things I’m passionate about is home decor. 

I try to make the place that I live into a place that I love to see!

The way my home looks affects the way I feel in it. 

I want my home to be a beautiful place that I long to see so that when I am in it I feel calm, happy, and inspired. 

 

If my home is chaotic and crazy, then it usually reflects how my life is too. 

If my home is clean and in order, then my life usually is too.

Don’t get me wrong, a little chaos is good, needed even, but just not too much chaos. 

 

I like to match colors, 

I like to fill my home with light, 

and I like to fill my walls with memories that always make me smile. 

 

 

So today I’m sharing a little trick to help with matching colors on your wall hanging photos. 

 

Have you ever worked really hard to find just the right frame to hang a certain photo,

But then the matting inside the frame doesn’t match?

Since I am a photographer, I have a thing for colors matching. 

 

Peanut Brittle Art created a lovely custom watercolor of my little family, 

and I found just the right frame at IKEA for only a few bucks!

I LOVE their RIBBA frame collection because it is simplistic and fresh, 

not distracting you from what you put into the frame. 

 

 

Only problem was that the matting was slightly too small, 

and it was also off white. 

 

My daughter’s entire nursery is accented with bright white, 

like the edges of the frame are, 

so I didn’t want the off-white to dull the gorgeous painting

or distract from the lighting. 

 

Bright white always brings more light to a room. 

 

So I used a mat cutter to make the inside of the matting just the size I wanted it. 

Then I needed to fix the color. 

I fetched some of my handy dandy acrylic paints, 

(you can find these at Michael’s in any color under the sun)

and a sponge brush.  

 

I chose the colors that I wanted 

(white and blue since blue is the other color in my daughter’s ocean themed nursery)

and poured out some of each. 

I took the blue (which I wanted to see more of) and painted a layer over the whole matting.

 

I made sure to have something under it while I did this so I didn’t paint my table. 

I then mixed a little white in a time with long straight strokes. 

The result was giving me my “ocean themed look” 

and already looked a million times better than the off-white that it was before. 

You could do this technique and mix white with any color back ground for a whimsical, clean look. 

 

Finally I put my matting back in the frame and hung it all up!

It turned out so nicely

and brought just the right amount of ocean waves to the collage it is in.

Don’t settle with a matting that doesn’t match just because you like the frame. 

You can make it all work!

 

 

Check out my blog to see my daughter’s nursery tour coming later this month!

Thanks for reading!