Lariat

Lariat, originally uploaded by Uncommon Depth.

Once again I'm feeling like a silly girl. One of the biggest expenses in preparing my work for galleries and doing exhibitions is the framing. So anything to help cut expenses without sacrificing quality is most welcomed. I knew that cutting my own mats could save me some money but I never really looked into it because I thought it would be difficult to do; or would be something that I'd screw up and end up costing me more money.

Well I messed up on the mat opening size of a recent order, and I didn't have time to order more custom mats, so it was either find some precut ones or do it myself. My opening size was not a standard size.

The other things that had me resisting the idea of cutting my own were the price of the cutters and the time factor. But yesterday I decided I had no other options and bought a mat cutter. I got hope and read the instructions and about 10 minutes later had 2 perfectly cut mats and was feeling silly for not doing this earlier.

As a price comparison I was paying $12 for a 16x20" acid-free mat. A 32x40" piece of acid-free mat board costs $18. I can get 4+ mats out of that. I say 4 plus because the opening size can then be reused to cut a smaller sized mat. I am saving a minimum of $7.50 on every mat. But in reality I'm probably saving much more than that because of the potential to use the mat openings.

By the time I've cut 18 mats the cutter will have paid for itself too. And I'll probably have those 18 mats cuts by the end of the month. BTW, this post has nothing to do with the image, except that I'll be printing and matting some of these branding photos!