Idea #6 Plasma Frame- Okay you husbands out there! Did you just install your dream plasma in your family room and your wife is having a fit that it does not go with the decor? You can easily add a frame to the outer dimensions to bring in the style and colors of the room. Not only is a great gift to surprise her. You can install it easy in time before the holidays!

Gift Idea #5 These gorgeous displays are a great place to store jewelry and make artwork of it. The frames are both stylish, and useful! Any women would love this. So easy to make….all you have to do is cover a corkboard backing into a frame and add an old frame!

Gift Idea 4. Record how quickly your child has grown by lining up shoes in a shadow box and labeling them with the appropriate ages. This growth chart is way prettier than pencil marks on the wall. What a good use to shoes that have lost their mate.

Join us this month for ideas for the perfect custom framing gift idea!

Gift Idea 3. – Pencil monograms

Perfect Gift idea for Teachers! Make your favorite teacher’s initial out of pencils. Super easy and very easy to frame. I’ll even help you sharpen them down to size. LOL

Pencil Monogram

Join us this month for  ideas for the perfect custom framing gift idea!

Gift Idea 1. Framed Advent Calender

After the holidays are over we can help you make the frame into a bulletin board, dry erase board, mirror or add one of your favorite photos into it. Great idea for a gift for teachers, or those with little ones. Little boxes or envelopes can be added that have little treats inside!

Framed Advent Calender made of scrapbooking materials! Can be done in so different themes to match any decor. Courtesy of StampersClub.com

The last 2 stages of Benjamin Moore’s Color Pulse of 2012 is Protection and Enlightenment.

First addressing the ideas of Protection. This seems pretty explanatory, but what does it mean when talking about color, design and the purpose here in this blog, art and art framing?

The ideas of design with Protection in mind, include protecting your identity, and preserving the truth. It is our need to feel safe in an uncertain time (again just like what I spoke about in Part 1 Heritage). It is a quest for structure mixed with longing. There is an underlying feminine theme of seduction. We all know about being protective on the outside and still be vulnerable inside.

The direction of hiding, reflecting and covering, while healing is interpreted in fashion’s current trends of khaki camouflage patterns and body armour. In the interior design world it includes the use of masks, padded quilting and cages as well.

When you look at the color palette there is definitely, a “girly” undertone to these trend. The colors include dulled fuchsia and pinks, different shades of greys and purples, natural stone and alabaster tones, gold, silver, bronze as well as black in contrast with white. The female undertones are mixed with bold pattern and mixed metal tones to bring sophistication and warmth that also nurtures and embraces.

The design trends include the following elements which I incorporated with art and art framing.

Body armor and camouflage Andy Warhol did a camouflage series in the 1980′s as seen below (trends always come back!) So many unique iron armor pieces could be used in a shadow box to bring in the color trend and texture through the use of mat and frame, as shown with the silver necklaces below floated on a black mat with modern wood block frame. Perfect juxtaposition of the old and new!

Andy Warhol Camouflage Series circa 1980′s

Reflecting Surfaces

Did you notice the birdcage grouping in the last photo? That brings us to another Protection characteristic There are birdcages popping up all over design but see how we can use them on your walls……very fun!

Benjamin Moore’s second part to their Preservation trend for 2012 talk about “Process”. Benjamin Moore’s vision for ”Process” is ….The Journey .

Journey is the movement towards function and a more sustainable lifestyle.  It is includes more nature inspired, graphic and urban site activated design; blocks, terrariums, hydroponics, crowd sourcing and labs - green is on the rise, charcoal, concept plus color; digital meets organic. It is the journey to HOW we get to a certain point and the materials we use to get there. The underlying theme would be the environment. Bringing the outdoors inside. We also want to see the inside of things, and how things work.

Pantone may set the color standards for all the industries of design. Benjamin Moore however expands on Pantone’s color trends to create thematic illusions that can be used in your home. It is using the color trends and developing them into ideas. The Process palette is more earthy, and the neutrals are more earthy. It includes layered greens, white as a blank canvas, pixellated colors, bold digital hues and the use of red or orange as contrasts to grays.

The following are key elements to PROCESS. How can we apply the characteristics to art and things we frame? Well just see below at the following for some fun ideas………….

Blue prints/Maps as art

 

Check in next week for Part 3 & 4 of the series. We look forward to framing your treasures!

Trends are very interesting because they can be inspired by a direct reflection of what is going on with the world. When reading about trends and forecast for 2012 from experts at Benjamin Moore Paint, I found some very interesting thoughts with the current trends of style and color that can really be conveyed in the use of art and art framing in our surroundings.

Benjamin Moore’s 2012 Color Forecast .

The trends of style and color are a direct reflection of our environment that includes our current economic and social climate. The uneasiness that we may feel in these times are leading us to a path that connect our history with our future. This includes identifying the strengths or pleasant times in our past to give us confidence going into the “tough waters ahead” This is broken down in to four major themes by Benjamin Moore Paints.

1.    Heritage – our past
2.    Process – our journey
3.    Protection – our vulnerability
4.    Enlightenment – our future

How are each conveyed into style, color and ultimately art and art framing? Art is sentimental. It is full of meaning to each and every person differently. It can be personal. We go thru different stages in our lives. We love to have pieces around us to make us feel good, to help us remember our pasts, and to help inspire our futures. Art in our homes, offices and other surrounding should make us feel all these things.

Today we will talk about the first theme Heritage.

Heritage is about comfort. It is a feeling of the nostaglic past. It’s a celebration of what has been. You may see a great presence of traditional cultures in both fashion and home design elements. The feeling of belonging to a close-to-home community, cherishing your roots and beginnings, better understanding of other cultures is becoming more and more important to a modern human being. It includes:

- Recycled and repurposed items. It is maybe using old barn wood to make a new table. It is taking a vintage door knocker or a old set of keys are creating a shadowbox. Another idea would be to use a old gilded gold frame as a mirror in a remodeled bathroom. Add a antique glaze or dark finish to it and you have a added vintage touch with your modern space.

Antique Key Shadowbox

-Allegiance to our flag by added patriotic elements.

Decorating with framed American Flag

-Fossils- this could be old pieces of pottery, pieces of seashell from a memorable trip or some other earth element that you find to be a treasure. Adding it to a shadowbox with some natural linen or raw silk backing with a distressed or antique moulding and you have a piece of art to admire for years.

Artifacts from 332 Egypt

-Native geometric and contemporary serape patterns

-Southwest influence- this is a warmer more antique version then the 1980′s pastel version. Think of it mixed with leather chairs, rich dark woods and more tradition.

-Rugs that look worn, like they could tell a story. If small enough to frame they add wonderful texture and texture to your walls.

Framed Navajo Rug

-Totems and stacking elements

-Handcrafted lace, home spun string art, large-gage knitting

Framed Hand Spiral Lace Paper

-Embroidered and embellished pieces

Colors towards this trend include rich jewel tones including deep teals. Wine is the new black. Neutral tones are warm and saturated including camel, sand stone or deep brown with red undertones. Changing out a mat or frame in your art and adding a few accent pillows or accessories can really bring out the new trends and keep your room looking fresh.

Heritage Color Trend

We will continue with Part 2 of Trends 2012 next week. We at Fine Arts Framing look forward to framing the that treasures you have especially ones with stories of the past! Call us at 714/898-5097 if you have a treasure that you would like to include in your art collection.

Our latest project was a Egyptian Papyrus that we framed in a wood frame by adding a gold fillet inset on the inside of the frame to bring out the gold paint of the papyrus. We floated the art on black linen fabric mat for a dramatic touch that shows off its characteristic frayed edged

Here is a little background on the making of the papyrus. They are very popular with travelers to Egypt. We have framed many over the years. It is a form of art to us today that is one of the oldest writing materials in history.

Papyrus is the material that is made from the fibers of reeds that grown on the banks of the Nile River. It was manufactured as early as the first Egyptian Dynasty about 4000 years ago until “Ground paper” eventually replaced papyrus for economic reasons, about the 11th Century.  Since then,  papyrus has still been manufactured the same way but has been primarily used for art but also as material for baskets, bedding, rugs etc.. The papyrus is gathered and trimmed into pieces about 12′ long, it is then soaked in river water for about 3 days to keep the reed flexible. The tough skin is peeled away exposing a white pith. This pith is sliced into thin strips with a razor blade the slices then squeezed to remove the excess water. The strips are laid slightly overlapping, vertical and horizontally, creating a tight weave. The strips are then squeezed between blotters and held under pressure until the papyrus strips dry for about 4 days. Egypt’s dry climate was perfect for the stability of papyrus. The natural juices from the papyrus create a glue, giving strength and durability to the paper. 

The Papyri was then used for painting pictures, sending correspondence or as a journal to record events using paint or ink made of oil or gouache colors. We know this ancient Egyptian writing as “hieroglyphic”