“My name is (insert name of most of the ladies I know here, myself included) and I love shopping at Hobby Lobby.” There, we are now part of our own support group. But seriously, I do love shopping there, it’s been a place of serious retail therapy for me many times. But one area of the store that I really never frequented is the custom framing department. It just felt too “luxurious,” and I assumed I could never afford it.
Recently, I came into some things from my parent’s house when we cleaned it out. (That’s a whole different story, for a different day). One of the items was a chalk drawing that my mom and I had done at an Ohio theme park in the late 80’s.
It was at one of those kiosks off the walking path in the park where you could have funny caricature drawings done, or a more realistic portrait in chalk. My mom and I got our profiles done, side-by-side, and I always loved the picture. We never really did anything with it, my Dad had it propped up in his office in our basement for a while, but eventually I lost track of it. Imagine my surprise when I found it tucked into a large manila envelope in the the guest room closet of my parent’s house. I had thought it was long gone, but here it was. The page was torn in one corner, the colors a bit faded, but considering it was 25 years old, it looked to be in great shape. I decided to take it with me, and that I would do something to preserve it so that it could be hung in my home. Fast forward almost two months later, when I finally got the chance to get to my little project.
I took the picture to Hobby Lobby’s custom framing department and thought I would just ask what they could do with it. If the estimate was too high, I could always say “no thank you” and be on my way. The woman who helped me was so sweet and right away could tell the picture was sentimental for me. She handled it with uber-care, and said that they framed people’s important treasures all the time.
That’s when I found out there are actually a lot of options when it comes to custom framing. They can build you your own custom frame out of a design of your choice (the pricier option), or you can choose from several “open-frames.” These are frames already assembled but without the matte or a backing. They still offer lots of choices as far as size and style, and also just happened to be 50% the particular day I was in the store. This was a way for me to get a custom frame, but at a more reasonable price. Yippee!! I always love a bargain. I picked out the frame that I wanted, some matting that would coordinate well, and chose a matte glass option (another cool perk of doing a custom frame job instead of just picking up a frame with glass already on the shelf). Okay, so now time for the price. I cringed and waited as she crunched some numbers. The total, with sales tax (10% where I live), was $75! Now, I know that’s not cheap. But for the quality of materials that I got, the preservation of a family treasure, and the knowledge that they would do a good job it was well worth the price. Plus, they turned it around in less than two days! You can’t beat that as far as I’m concerned! It takes me longer than two days to do a load of laundry sometimes… 🙂
So, here is the frame in its finished glory, I’m so happy with how it turned out.
And here it is in its new home, above the piano that also belonged to my mom.
I’m putting pics of myself with my own two boys next to it, and love the story that the three frames will tell together. A child with her mother, and then her own two children. That just feels warm and fuzzy <3 It will give me a nice place to retreat when things are happening that don’t feel so warm and fuzzy. Have a great day!