Some more examples - Medals and Shirts galore!

It seems it's about time I showed some more recent examples of specialist framing, and for this post its all medals and shirts! Indeed these are the most popular kinds of specialist items to box frame and we do take a bit of professional pride in them!
Below is a detail of the interesting set of medals in the first picture. As well as the usual set of WW2 medals, this individual had ten Rifle Shooting medals which we hand stitched onto the suedette mountcard. The stitching is fiddly work but the end results are really satisfying!

Here below is another interesting set, again with the medals hand stitched onto suedette mountcards, this time Football medals from 1912 to 1928...

(The bendy window apperture is distortion from my camera lens - it is actually cut straight!)

Next below our shop example medal set showing how you could incorporate cap badges and flashes with your medals... Again it is all shadow mounted to keep the glass well clear of the medals.

And finally last of the medals for today as a change from the WW2 medals we so often frame, an Iraq War Veteran's medal very aptly framed in a much more contemporary style which I think suits it very well.

So now to the shirts... All of our shirts are first stretched over acid neutral conservation board and then hand stitched onto the under mount. We use no glues, so the whole process is completely reversable. The shadow mount keeps the glass clear of the shirt and presents it really smartly in a deep box frame.


This one has been done as a 'full shirt' with an extra window for some text....

And this one below has been done as a 'half shirt'...

As a general guide a 'full shirt' would start at £150 to £180, while a 'half shirt' would start around £120 to £140.
Medal sets very much depend on how much or little you'd like to include but can range between about £60 to £100. Please do feel free to drop by for a free no obligation quote, we're always more than happy to help!
More examples coming soon...

Don't miss our January Sale!

Our January Sale is now underway, so come and grab some bargains while you can!
There are big reductions on many framed prints and originals as well as some beautiful large and small framed mirrors.
Also we have some new 'Art Group' prints in stock with more coming soon including prints by the ever popular Sam Toft...
Don't forget we also stock crafts from our skilled local wood turners, silversmiths and ceramicists, and our new GIFT VOUCHERS are now available from the shop, just pop in and ask!

A look back... Midsomer Norton's Christmas Lantern Fayre...

Firstly a Happy and Healthy New Year to you all! Hope you all had a great Christmas and well done to all our customers who braved the snows to collect their Christmas framing! Hope you all kept warm and well in the snow and ice!
This is a somewhat belated post, a bit of a catch up after the busy Christmas period, starting with some pictures from Midsomer Norton's Lantern Fayre all the way back on the 3rd of December! We were just too busy to post them at the time but it was such a fun and exciting night it would be a shame to pass it by...

Many of the traders, including us, took part in the parade down the High Street, all dressed as Pantomime characters as part of a fantastic competition on the night. The public had to guess which pantomime each of us were representing with our window displays and costumes for a chance to win £250!
We were representing Aladdin, here are some pictures of our Aladdin's Cave window and us looking decidedly silly...







It was lovely to see so many of you braving the bitter cold and having a great time. Our shop was bustling and crowded and people seemed to enjoy the free mulled wine and chocolates too! So a big Thank You to everyone who braved the cold to support our town's Christmas Lantern Fayre, complete with Snow Queen, Ice Elf and even Santa's Reindeer.

Well done competition winners! And a visit from a Children's Book Illustrator ...

I've realised I've not updated the blog for a while, there just didn't seem to be a spare minute! But here is the first of a couple of belated posts about some of our recent events.
A little while ago with the support and help of local school's magazine 'Hey!' we ran a children's art competition to illustrate a dream holiday!
We got some fantastically imaginative entries and the children all worked really hard, so a big thank you to everyone who entered!
The winners and runners up pictured here were presented with their prizes by Children's Book Illustrator Paula Bowles who was a fantastic sport for taking part and made a special trip out for the prizegiving. (Paula's the one on the right of the picture...)
She presented the Winners with signed copies of her 'Time for bed Tiger!' book and all the children received art sets as well to continue their creative endeavours!
We framed the winners lovely artwork and mounted the runners up's, they look great don't they! So well done everyone and keep up the good work!
Paula is a member of SWIllustrators and you can check out her fantastic illustrations here at her blog and here at www.paulabowles.co.uk
Thanks again Paula, it was lovely to see you in Midsomer Norton!

Here are the winning pictures...

Winner Age 4 -6 Katie Green

Runner up Age 4 - 6 Natalie Green

Winner Age 7 - 9 Elena Cook

Runner up Age 7 - 9 Megan Dram

Winner Age 10 - 12 Imogen Young

Runner up Age 10 - 12 Melissa Dram
Fantastic work everyone!

Three generations of military service...

It being Armistice Day, I thought it an appropriate time to show a recent example of an interesting bespoke framing job. Our customer kindly gave us permission to show his finished frame which shows three generations of military service in his family - himself, his Father, and his Grandfather who served in the first world war, and I am told was only sixteen years old in this photo.
Each service man has been quadruple mounted in his regimental colours, with his cap badge shadow-mounted in an oval or circle apperture above. Quite a tricky mount to cut but well worth it for the effect. I photographed it before the glass was fitted to get some reflection free shots!



We seem to have had a few more medal framing enquiries than usual this week with Armistice Day being on everyone's mind. I will be putting some more medal examples up soon, but please feel free to drop in with your specifications and we'll be happy to advise.

A general guide to costs of framing medals are approximately between £40 and £60 depending on the frame chosen and how many medals or additional objects such as cap badges, regimental flashes or photographs etc... are included.

Our Armistice Day window display will be up for a few more days yet if you haven't seen it. It includes is a framed signed limited edition Artists proof of Queen Elizabeth by renowned portrait painter 'Christian Furr' to be auctioned in aid of HELP FOR HEROES on December the 11th at Norton Hill School.
I will post more details shortly...

Wear your Poppy with pride.

A recent example of an unusual box frame...

This is a really interesting framing job Tony did recently which our customer has kindly given us permission to show...
It's an antique Japanese theatre mask made of wood and horse hair and I just couldn't resist getting a picture of Tony with it to compare beards!


The mask itself is hung by a brass hook so it can be removeable, and the high lacquer facing frame is hinged with a magnetic clasp to close it which has been recessed and stained black.
Inside the box is lined with lovely black suede mount board which sets off the pale mask to dramatic effect!

Tony hand made a very deep box frame to hold this and built up the finish in several layers, highly waxed to imitate Japanese lacquer with the red bole distressed through to show on the edges. The top frame or door is an Arqadia high lacquer moulding which sits well with the hand finishing on the box.


And just for fun one more shot of those beards... they could be distant relatives!

More unusual framing examples coming soon...

An update - some recent examples...

I've realised with all the catching up after the shop move that we've not posted for a while... so I thought I'd show a few of the interesting jobs we have framed for our customers recently.
This is a rather nice set of Royal Naval WW2 medals - one with an oakleaf commendation. They have been shadow mounted onto blue suede mountboard with a gun metal/pewter effect frame which sets it off really well.
It's always nice to have a photo of the person too which always makes it so much more personal and gives a connection to the man's life and brave deeds. There are always such amazing and courageous stories behind these medal sets that really should be honoured and remembered. So many of these war medals are split and sold off, losing their stories and becoming anonomous which I believe is a real shame.

On a different note (or power chord!) here is a snare drumskin signed by the band Motorhead. It has been shadow mounted as well, with the drumskin set into a circular cut apperture and supported behind with foam board. Sorry for the unclear picture here, the Motorhead logo is mounted behind its own bevel cut window in the bottom mount and the frame is a deep profile ideal for box framing.

Now for a tricky one! An original Disney sketch with pin badge... The mountcard I had to replicate on this one was probebly originally cut on a computerised mountcutting machine, but I had to cut it by hand on our Keencut Oval cutter and Ultimat Gold cutter. No easy task!
First I cut the circle in the outer mount then carefully measured and marked out with a compass my quarter circle cut with start and stop marks. It's very hard to do an accurate partial cut on a circle by hand on this machine so it was some challenge to then do it all again 5mm deeper for the yellow inner mount!I then cut the rest of the double mount as normal on the Ultimat Gold cutter for the straight edges and backed it with foam board to support the pin of the badge.

And here is another shirt belonging to the Paulton Rovers goal keeper who played against Norwich City last year. He'd actually swopped shirts with the Norwich City goalie and we framed that up as well to go with it!
There has been quite a few really nice shirts framed in the last few months that we didn't manage to photograph, including a fully signed Real Madrid shirt, a fully signed child's Liverpool shirt, Bath Rugby shirts and a burgandy Paulton Rovers home shirt that went into a burgandy stained frame with burgandy inner mount and looked great!

More updates coming soon!