I’m so excited, I have my very own Kelly Thompsonparrot print thanks to a very generous friend! You have probably seen her work on the cover of the Melbourne Urban Walkabout Guides for Melbourne and Fitzroy/Collingwood – she’s pretty awesome. It just needs the perfect frame.
I’m sure you’ve seen these – super awesome photo frames that basically sandwich art in between two pieces of glass, making it even more art. Although this looks cool, framing is trickier than meets the eye, and if not done well it can look a bit lameo. Read on to find out how you can easily frame your own prints.
You will need:
Floating frame (e.g. Country Road’s Co Op Frame)
Set square
Permanent marker
HB pencil
Eraser
Sellotape or double sided tape
Methylated spirits
Paper towels
How to do:
1. Remove the back piece of glass and set the rest of the frame aside.
2. Using your set square and marker, mark the middle of each side of the back piece of glass. If you make a mistake, use the methylated spirits to whip it off and start again.
3. Connect each middle with it’s opposite side forming a cross. If your set square is too short, do the shorter side first and mark the centre of that before connecting the longer sides.
4. Flip over the glass so the marker side is face down on the table.
5. Clean the non marker side of the glass with the methylated spirits and paper towels. You can not be too thorough here – lint between the glass is annoying.
6. Using the pencil and set square, very lightly mark the middle of each side of the print. Like real light – it needs to come off later.
7. Add a couple of pieces of tape to the non-marker side of the glass. If you only have normal tape, then form a loop to make it double sided. Don’t go to far to the edge of the glass as you don’t want to see the tape underneath the print. 
8. Place the print on the glass.
9. Carefully line up the points you made on the art with the cross on the glass.
10. Press down on the print to stick it to the glass. You might want to measure and adjust here if necessary.
11. Rub off the pencil marks with the eraser.
12. Lightly brush off any lint on the print with a clean dry paper towel. If there is any lint on the right side of the glass this is the time to clean it too – just be careful not to get any methylated spirits on the print.
13. Clean the back of the front piece of the glass.
14. Sandwich the two pieces of glass together – check for lint and remove if any, then continue assembling the rest of the frame.
15. Using the methylated spirits and paper towels, remove the cross on the back of the glass.
16. Clean the front of the frame.
You are now ready to hang in a bomb diggity place where lots of people can walk past and admire all the effort you put in to make it effortless.
General tips:
Make sure to have really clean hands – nothing worse than a smudge on your new print.
Make sure when measuring to be as accurate as you can to the half millimetre. Like really – try real hard.
You can not be too AR when cleaning to remove the lint/dust. You should obsess about this heaps before sandwiching the glass together. Once this is over, you can go back to your life though. You’ll be a better person.
