Picking up from yesterday –
So, we’d decided to go with Michaels. (By “we,” I mean me and my parents who bought this for me as an awesome, wonderful Christmas present.)
When we first got the quote from Michaels, we didn’t go nuts with laying everything out, because I’d learned my lesson from last time, and didn’t want to take up another framer’s time…
We just did enough so she’d be able to give us the estimate.
Then, I took the medals back to my parent’s house, and laid them out in the shape of a 52 in chronological order. I measured it to make sure it’d fit in the 40″ x 60″ frame. Then I took a bunch of pictures so we’d all remember what it should look like.
While talking with Andrea when getting the quote, she had a great idea that we could put the actual race medals in the 52 and surround it with the 18 bonus medals.
In the end, the 52 barely fits in the frame. So, the bonus medals couldn’t surround it unless we made everything look very squished. Her recommendation (which I really liked) to fix that problem is to have two smaller frames (separate pieces) – one on each side of the big, huge 52 frame.
So, that’s the plan. As of now, we’ve only taken in the big 52 for framing. That was a big chunk of change in itself and we’re gonna see how it goes first. Assuming it turns out beautifully, then we’ll probably take the leap to finish the last two frames and be all done with it.
We laid everything out agin in the frame shop so Andrea could take her own pictures. Most of the ribbons on the medals are going to be hidden behind the mat. But we picked out some to kind of shape around the 52, so some of the more beautiful ones can be visible (and so the medals look cooler and fuller).
As far as picking out the mat, it was sort of hard to pick a background color. I generally like bold colors, but we needed to pick something at least somewhat muted to be able to show off all the medals.
I really enjoyed a purple color… and then realized it didn’t come in our huge mat size. There was a pink I loved that had the same problem. Then I landed on a dark blue. It actually goes great with the pink. So, the plan is to have the pink matting in the smaller bonus medal frames.
Also, I gave Andrea my bibs so she could cut them and line the inside of the shadowbox with them! I’m so glad I found a place for the bibs! I knew I wanted to save them, but had no idea where to put them. Now, voilà!
The frame should be coming back pretty soon. So, more on that when it’s finished. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the t-shirts and the awesome quilt.