Page:Embroidery and Fancy Work.djvu/303

Rh HOME-MADE PICTURE FRAME.

It is sometimes desirable to frame pictures at home. Here are a few directions as to doing it.

If the margin of your engraving or picture is not perfectly clean make a "mat" out of tinted drawing paper. To do this cut your paper the size of the picture and cut in it an oval or square through which the picture may be seen. It will be necessary to draw the outline for this very carefully, making very accurate measurements, so that the margin will be symmetrical. If you wish to draw an oval and have no mathematical instruments, place a string over two pins firmly placed as foci of the ellipse. The string should be a little longer than the distance between the pins. Move a pencil round just inside the string and the result will be an ellipse of the required form. About half an inch outside of this draw a second oval, and with a sharp knife cut it half through the cardboard. These two ovals must be very sharply and neatly cut. The cardboard should be bent inward at this cut. Take a thick piece of cardboard and cut in it a hole just a little larger than the one in the "mat," and paste the latter on, laying the whole over the picture. Put the glass in its place on the top of the mat and it to the frame by strips of leather paper or even by very nice strips of brown wrapping paper making an even rim round the margin of the picture, and pasting enough over the back to hold it firmly in place. Paste a sheet of stout brown paper over the back, inserting a piece of tape holding a small ring at the top of the frame, pasting it firmly to the pasteboard.

You can vary this frame by rolling up some very stout brown paper and press it out flat till it is an inch or two wide. Glue it into shape and cover with tinfoil glued on. Then fit it to the glass, slanting the corners so that they will fit neatly. A little narrow margin of red or blue