I was asked to re-frame a picture this week. It was a nice pastel with a grey background, a blue mat, and a dated wood frame..... We got down to designing something more modern that would go better in her home. My client could not recall why they chose the blue mat.... But we made a cool funky design and I ordered up the goods. Later on in the week I dismantled the framing and it all became clear. There was no conservation framing at all(except the blue mat, which was still blue)! The mat was blue, because underneath the mat the original paper was blue. It used to have a blue background but it had faded to grey :(

The lesson here is if you care about something, use the acid free archival materials and uv glass to preserve your treasure!!

This is the original design that we are going to re-do.

Once we removed the piece from the frame we could see how faded the paper was and why they originally chose a blue mat.

This is our completed redesign!