Matting Our Poetry

Last month I shared a little about framing our poetry.  This month I would like to focus on the matting.  In today's market, no matter how well we write, our product will have to catch the customer's eye if we expect to make sales.

One way to enhance our writings is to mat our poems.  Mats are available at most discount stores for reasonable prices.  Wal-Mart and K-Mart, for example, both carry mats in many different configurations.

You can also look in the classified section of Sunshine Magazine, and you will find many sources for mats.

Most of my poems are matted into 8x10 mats with a 5x7 opening.  Our customers have the option of purchasing our poems matted, or we can also frame the matted poems for them.   Another mat that is growing in popularity on the craft circuit is the 11x14 mat with various configurations.

I'm including a couple of links so that you can see what I have done.  The first one is my poem, Mother And Daughter, where I printed my poem and a picture three times.  I then took two pieces of mat and taped the pictures onto the mat.  I then placed the two mats together and put them on top of the third copy of the poem to create a very beautiful effect.  It probably sounds confusing, but you can take a look at the final product at the following link, which is one of my EBAY listings:

http://cgi.ebay.com/why/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=31746&item=5590952154&rd=1

Another creation I just put together is The Circle Of Love.  I used a mat with five
openings, one for my poem and four for pictures.  I placed pictures in the four openings to give my customers an idea of what could be done.  This is another one of my EBAY listings, and you can see it at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/why/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3268&item=5592249731&rd=1

Mostly, I encourage you to be creative and do something no one else is doing.  There are as many possibilities as you have ideas.

Until next time, God bless.

Larry Howland