Developing my eye

Part of cleaning up after Christmas is dragging out the "general decorations" box. That's where I put everything that I take down to make room for Christmas stuff.

Last year I was on a minimalistic thing and didn't want anything put back up. Sort of an extreme response to Christmas decorations that I didn't like. The cool thing is that there was stuff in the bottom of the box that I forgot I had.

A Taiwanese friend of mine, Janet, gave me three beautiful postcards. I wanted to use them. My daughter broke the glass that was holding her portrait. Since I couldn't put her siblings' pictures up without her, I decided to use the three remaining frames for the postcards! Perfecto!

The postcards were too small and I didn't have any matting, so I put black construction paper behind the postcard and slid it into the frame. It was okay, but that's it. I scanned the room, What could I use instead of the black paper? My eyes fell on an Urban Outfitters catalog, and then I knew.

I perused the pages, looking for color schemes that would go with the postcards overall look. When I found one that looked right, I traced the frame, cut it out and carefully taped the postcard to the new "matting."

Overall I'm super happy with the results. They look so much better than just plain-Jane black paper. I have to credit the beloved Mej for this. Previous to knowing her, I would have settled. But not now. Now I've seen too much to go back. I can never be who I was. Once you've tasted beauty, nothing else satisfies...

(How was that for over-dramatic?)