I can appreciate a traditional square or rectangular window when matting my images, and in many cases, that is the most elegant way to display them. But there is a huge part of me that loves ‘flair’ and the dynamic presentation of colorful, specialty cut mats. Do you have a music lover in the family you would like to drop a ‘note’ to? Someone who needs a must-have mustang? And nothing quite says, “Uh, yeah….look at ME” like a Fleur de Lis.

If you’re not familiar with specialty cut mats, essentially they are mats that have any shape opening you can dream up. You can cut a square or rectangle shaped opening for your art and then as an accent, you could add custom shapes to either the sides, top or bottom. How about cut outs of a dancer and ballet slippers below the image of your little ballerina? Or consider golf clubs and golf ball shaped cuts to the sides of the mat surrounding the photo of Uncle Bert swinging the club for that famous hole-in-one at last year’s family picnic? You could also mount an image right behind a specialty cut window. Mount the picture of your prize-winning dahlia behind a cut out of a blue ribbon. Do you have a loved one who is an avid sports fan? How about adding a cut out of their favorite team mascot? The possibilities are virtually endless.

Specialty cut mats are also great for children’s art. I like to take specialty cut mats and use them with my stepdaughter’s drawings so she can give them to relatives as gifts. It makes her feel like the artist of the century and the gifts are a very special keepsake for the recipient.

We look forward to working with you and taking your ideas and making them a reality!

Brandi

Have you seen our Outlet section?  It doesn’t have a lot in it right now, but what is there is pretty great.

We’re currently selling packs of 25 assorted whites, ivory and cream mats starting at $15.00

These packs are a bit of a grab bag and you can get anything from archival to economy mats and any color from bright white to dark cream.  What fun!

We offer them pre-cut with openings for a 5×7 and for a 4×6 image.  The mats for a 4×6 image are great for standard photos. These both have an 8×10 outside dimension.

The packs also come in 11×14 for a 8×10 image.

Check out the assorted mat packs right now.

We wanted you to know right away.  Sale is only on Archival Custom Matboards and Full Sheets.  More information to come.

It’s time for another Virtual Art Walk!  We hope you’ll take a little time this afternoon to browse through the online galleries of some of our most prolific customers.  These links are  a collection of all the artists we have posted about on our weekly Friday Art Watch Series over the last two months.

If you’re not familiar with it, Friday Art Watch is something that we post only on Twitter and Facebook every Friday. We love being able to show you all the terrific work our customers are doing and hopefully the posts will inspire you as well.

Once every couple of months we post a round up of the artists from Friday Art Watch series on the blog under Virtual Art Walk. This gives people who don’t follow us on Twitter or Facebook a chance to see who we’ve been profiling. If you want to catch up with the series, here are the previous Virtual Artwalks.

We’ve really enjoyed having this dedicated time to showcase our customers work. So, in case you missed it on Facebook or Twitter , here’s your chance to catch up. Take a little Friday afternoon stroll with us and enjoy the featured artists from the last few months.

Eileen David – Painting

Jane Hemmerich – Photography

Hiroshi Rodriguez – Spray Painting

Surachai – Painting

Scott Lantz – Painting

Jeannie Truitt - Pencil

Jason Langer - Black and White Photography

Chris Bidleman – Photography

Chris Carr - Watercolor Painting

Starting today you can get 20% off on your Clear Bags, Framing Supplies and Tools! Make sure you use the code CBST7 to get that discount.

Now you can save when you stock up on your favorite Clear Bags! 11×14 is probably the most popular size we carry.  Is it one you use? So, instead of $15.00 for 100, with the discount you’ll pay $12.00!

Now you can also get that framing tool you’ve been eyeing and get 20% off. Have you always wanted a Point Driver or a ATG Gun or maybe some cotton gloves. Now’s the time to get them!

Also, take this chance to stock up on your favorite mounting tape at 20% off!

If you’re not sure what actually falls under the category Supplies and Tools, check out this page about the sale.