How to Cut Collage Mats
Framing your finished collages can make them look like gallery pieces, but paying a custom framing service to do the job can be costly. Learn to cut your own mats and you'll be able to create your own custom framing at home. Cutting your own mats will not only save you money. You'll also have absolute control over your collage's final presentation.
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Things You'll Need
- Finished collage
- Photo frame
- Mat board
- Utility knife
- Self-healing cutting mat
- L-shaped ruler
- Pencil
- Straight ruler
- Mat cutter
Instructions
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Cut your mat board to size. The dimensions of your mat board will depend on the size picture frame you choose. Ms. Sarah Neuburger of The Small Object, a respected blog in the indie craft community, suggests using the paper insert from pre-made frames as a guide when determining your mat size. Place your mat board, wrong side up, onto your self-healing cutting mat and align the paper frame insert at one corner. Using the insert and your L-shaped ruler as a guide, cut out your mat with a utility knife.
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Determine the size of your borders. The size of your borders will depend on your aesthetic preferences. If you are matting a small collage in a much large frame, your borders will be wider than if you were matting a larger collage in a slightly bigger frame. You can also cut borders of differing widths. Neuburger suggests making the top and two side borders the same width and experimenting with the lower border.
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Make calculations for the vertical borders. In his article, "Mat Cutting Made Simple," Robert Sloan, an artist who has cut his own mats for almost two decades, advises you to make sure your mat will overlap your image by at least ¼ inch, so keep this in mind when tracing your mat borders. Since you will want to center your collage from left to right, you will need to find the center of your mat board. Place your straight ruler horizontally across your mat and mark the center point. To determine where you will place your border edges, measure outward equally from the center point and mark your borders. When drawing your border guides, make the lines a little longer than your collage dimensions. This will help you cut accurate corners.
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Place your top and bottom borders. For the top, measure from the edge of your mat board to the border mark and transfer your measurement. Beginning at your top border mark, measure the length of your collage minus ½ inch and mark for the bottom border.
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Cut out your borders. Line up the blade along your border guides. Ms. Neuburger suggests placing the blade just over your corner mark with the blade angled toward the center of the mat. Cut along each border guide using your L-shaped ruler as a guide. Overcut your corners by about 1/4 inch to account the border's beveled edges.
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