Adventures in Custom Framing!

I recently purchased a cute panda-balloon print of a painting by Elsie from Red Velvet Art.

It now sits very cutely on the wall by my tiny work area!

We got a frame at Michaels and it was 40% off.

Hairy and I have a habit of collecting prints here and there, but never framing them or getting them up on the wall. This is because so many of these prints need custom framing, and custom framing IS SO EFFING EXPENSIVE!!!! Kinda makes me want to make sure a print is a standard size before buying it, because I can’t keep spending $100-$200 for custom frames. It’s a little frustrating! Even with the custom framing “sale” at Michael’s, the frame and mats we chose came to like $180!! $160 without the mats! Carumba! So Elsie’s got up on the wall right quick, since it was good old 8 x 10!

In other news, our washing machine broke and would not kick into the final rinse. I had a machine full of water and soggy clothes! The repair dude came today and said that we needed a new pump, that the motor had burned out because the pump was all CLOGGED. At first he said it was all green, which made me think of the two times I put the kitchen rugs in the washing machine…… but Hairy said he saw a mass of fibers and that all my machine felting/fulling of cute-tility packs and zipper pouches also seemed the culprit. Bummer!!!!!

I’d read that people had to have their washing machines repaired due to all the fibers from machine felting, but I figured that with all the dog hair going in there, too, that it wouldn’t make a difference. In order to avoid hurting your machine, you should place your knitted/crocheted items in a zippered pillow case. This way, many of the fibers will remain in the pillow case. However, I always found that my items would scrunch down into the corner of the pillow case and come out deformed and unevenly felted, so I preferred to chuck things in there freestyle. Guess I can’t do that anymore!! Not really sure how I’ll resolve my scrunch problem….but I’ll think on it!

Tonight, Hairy made goulash in the slow cooker. It was good!

Right now I’m refining my pattern for bacon and eggs scarves and eating nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt with granola. If you haven’t tried Greek yogurt yet….IT’S A MUST!!!!!

10 Comments on “Adventures in Custom Framing!”

  • The print is soooo cute! 🙂

    • It was really tempting to buy the actual painting at the time….!

  • I’m sorry you killed your washer!!

    The best way to get around the *scrunching down* of your felted items when you put them into a pillowcase is to STUFF them first! A lot of the felters I know jam-pack their items full of plastic grocery bags, or some other similar water & fiber-neutral items. If the items are square-ish you could also stuff a ziploc bag with other plastic bags to make sure you get a more definite shape, but once your feltables are stuffed they should be relatively scrunch-proof through the felting process!

    • ahhhhh that’s a really great idea!!!!!! thank you!! i can see that helping a lot with the squarish items. would be interesting to see how that would work with, like, a gingerbread man !

  • The cramped hand

    says:

    Is Greek yogurt made with cows or goat milk ? I had to give up yogurt when I developed allergies to dairy, but maybe its just cows milk.

  • Hezzywoo

    says:

    ah I love greek youghurt and honey.. 😛

  • Ashley

    says:

    If you end up getting a new washer ever, or happened to get yours at a Sears, purchase the service plan & renew it when it’s up. I forget how much it is for each year, but if it has to be serviced, even if the service charge is $1,000 & you only paid $100 for the service agreement, there is no additional fees. It’s useful for when your rugs are the culprit!

  • Jaime

    says:

    haha I just had greek yogurt today with honey. It’s delicious.

  • Skye

    says:

    I love love love love that panda print.. i was so tempted to buy the painting for my scrap room but my husband was like NO MORE, till you sort out what you already have… *sigh*

  • Caitlin

    says:

    Hey. Just get a custom mat cut to put in a regular frame… It’s a lot cheaper and sometimes you can get a coupon for the mat to be cut for like 50% off.

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