It’s a delight and a pleasure to see such creativity at such a young age. This year’s winner, Marc Robb from Bainsford Primary in Falkirk, is only 8 years old. You can’t help but smile at his colourful, cheery, gap-toothed character, that will soon be gracing windows, billboards and hoardings all over the city.

Regular Fringe goers amongst you may already be planning which shows you’re going to see. And you may even have bought a poster. Either way, I’d like to offer what I hope is an attractive 20% discount for your own framing requirements throughout the duration of the Festival.

All you have to do to get your Fan of the Fringe Framing discount is bring along a ticket or ticket stub from any Fringe event when you visit my workshop on Jamaica Street, anytime before the end of August.

Enjoy the summer and the fabulous Fringe!

A few weeks ago, I had an inquiry from a new customer (a referral actually, always the best way to get business). The lady in question, was looking to get two very beautiful and very delicate, ladies’ fans mounted and framed. Both family heirlooms, the lace fan, dating back to the mid-19th century, handmade in Brussels, was to be mounted onto a silk background and the hand-painted paper fan (mid-17th century) onto a complimentary coloured board. All fine so far.

We then began to look at mouldings. She was pretty sure she wanted gold or metallic finish of some sort, but the thing we had to consider was the depth of the frame, as the fans, particularly the lace one, had very large fittings on the handle. The frame would have to be deep enough to accommodate that. As we spoke further, I realised that what she actually wanted were frames shaped to follow the curvature of the fans ie semi-circular at the top. Hmmm, not so fine any more.

After scratching my head for a while (and a bit of chin stroking, like what arty people do), I told her that unless she had an unlimited budget it was nigh on impossible. To do that sort of thing properly would of course involve steaming the wood into shape and would require the expertise of a carpenter or cabinet maker. Not something I could do. I felt that they would work equally well in straight forward frames and taking into account the complexities (and expense) of her initial idea, she agreed.

After much scouring through catalogues and presenting her with a number of options, she decided on a distressed silver finish, flat faced moulding for the lace fan and a similar antique gold finish for the painted fan. Both deep rebate from Frinton Mouldings. My client supplied the silk for the lace fan and we selected a suitable coloured mountboard for the paper fan.

Materials chosen, the first stage of the job was to attach the fans to their relevant backings. The silk was pinned onto foamboard then, using a perfectly matched thread, I sewed the lace fan into place, using as few stitches as possible, whilst ensuring it was secure. The tricky bit was the tassle. My client had said that she was happy for it to hang loose, but it looked rather messy, so again, using almost invisible stitching, I wove the thread through the individual strands and then secured the whole thing with a light covering of – hairspray! Elnett of course.

Next thing was to cover mountboard fillets with the silk in order to raise the fan from the glass and create the effect of a box or casket. That done, the easiest part of the job, was making the frame itself which all went smoothly, until I came to assemble the elements and quickly realised that the deep rebate frame, wasn’t in fact, deep enough!

More scratching resulted in the decision to build up the back of the frame with wooden fillets that I finished with pewter wax to blend in nicely with the main frame. I didn’t want this back frame to be too visible when viewed from the sides, so I made it slightly smaller and positioned it about 10mm in from the outer edge of the main frame. It worked perfectly.

The final part of the job was the addition of UV glass to protect the delicate lace from the harmful effects of sunlight. I was rather chuffed with the result, as was my client, who has since contacted me to say how delighted she is and how good they look on the wall.

I’ve never framed anything quite that old, though my colleague Bill Ranson of Step Gallery Framing, recently framed a declaration that had been signed by Elizabeth 1 no less.

Anyway, the poster put me in mind of another ‘collectors piece’ that a neighbour recently brought to my workshop for framing. Dating back a mere 31 years, it’s a commemorative poster celebrating the 100th anniversary of The Natural History Museum, South Kensington.

My neighbour and her husband visited the exhibition with their then, 2 year old son and bought the poster as a souvenir. It had been carefully stored away all this time but she decided to ‘dust it down’ (though it wasn’t dusty cos my neighbour is a domestic goddess) and present it to her now grown-up son’s 2 year old daughter.

The poster was the winning entry in a competition aimed at schoolchildren, to design the poster that would mark the anniversary.The delightful image of a dinosaur with candles on its back, was the work of Amanda Taylor from Bristol. What made it all the more amazing, was that Amanda had Down’s Syndrome and as such the story attracted a lot of attention. I think it’s wonderful.

I framed it using a very simple flat-faced pine moulding with a nice linear grain, that I stained to match the background colour of the poster. That involved mixing mid and golden oak stains with, believe it or not. a bit of green. UV glass was used to protect the poster from exposure to sunlight.

My client was very happy with the result. I was happy. And I hope that the son and grand-daughter who will continue to enjoy this lovely souvenir for many years to come, will be happy too.

2012 sees a year-long celebration of the nation’s cultural and creative strengths and one of the initiatives being recognised are The Creative Place Awards. These celebrate the hard work and imagination that contribute to the rich cultural life of a community, as well as its social and economic well-being.

It was these awards that I was commissioned to frame. They had been designed in-house and to complement the clean, contemporary look and the square format (nice change from A4), myself and the designer settled on a simple, black lacquered, flat faced moulding with a complementary coloured window mount. As the awards were going to be photographed, non-reflective glass was used.

Details of the winners and runners up can be found here.

I hope it’s a prosperous one for us all, though that’s probably somewhat optimistic. Doom and gloom, howling winds and driving rain are the order of the day, so I am consoling myself with a bar of The Chocolate Library’s finest 70% cocoa solids dark chocolate, sent to me as a Christmas gift from the very talented, very lovely photographer, Brendan MacNeill. Thank you Brendan – I hope that 2012 is a good one for you.

It is exactly one year since I moved into my Jamaica Street premises and given the gales outside right now I am glad to be in a basement. I wouldn’t put money on the roof at my last place coming out unscathed.

The move to the New Town has been a good one and I have met lots of new people and enjoyed working on some interesting and varied projects. I was particularly pleased to have been involved with the framing and hanging at Centotre and The Scottish Cafe and hope to do more of that kind of work in the coming year.

During the Christmas break, me and hubs managed to catch the Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery – one day before it closed. The work on show spanned nearly six decades and there was much lovely stuff. However, as usual, I was as much taken with examining the frames as the paintings and couldn’t help but notice just how much a frame contributes to enhancing a piece of art. Some of the earlier pieces were clearly framed when the artist had little budget and as such were framed unsympathetically – or just not very well. There was a marked difference with other, more recent pieces where a skilled framer had been employed and for me, that really influenced my enjoyment of the work.

I would be interested to know what the view is for artists and galleries and indeed, collectors, where re-framing an original painting is concerned. Should it be kept in its original frame, to keep its authenticity? Or does it depend on its condition?  Or is it just personal taste? Comments welcome.

As usual, I plan to take photos of my more interesting commissions this year, with the intention of displaying the results here on my blog. And that’s probably the closest I’ll get to making a new years resolution.

I am pleased to report that I have just completed my second framing project for the indomitable Carina Contini of Centotre and Scottish Café fame. Many of you (hello Edinburgh Coffee Morning goers), will no doubt have seen the fantastic shots from the lens of local photographer, Shannon Tofts, that are currently gracing the walls of Edinburgh’s most popular eatery. I had the privilege of working with Shannon on that project, undertaking the framing, hand-setting the captions then hanging (with the aid of wonderful handyman Dave) the final 15 shots.

Last Sunday, while most of you were probably still in bed, me and my ‘humper’ (his words, not mine)), husband Mike Coulter, were hard at it again. Hanging pictures. But this time in the hallowed halls of the Scottish National Gallery no less.

It is here, that the Contini’s run The Scottish Café (on the Princes Street Gardens level) where the very best of Scottish produce is championed.To mark their second anniversary, Shannon was commissioned to take portraits of their team of wonderful suppliers and producers, highlighting the provenance and quality of the ingredients the café uses.

As with the Centotre project, I made the frames – simple tulip wood, hand finished with a pale grey wash – and painstakingly, hand set the captions beneath each shot. This really was a labour of love, tweezers in hand, carefully composing, with 3mm rubber type, the words which hopefully convey just how important these people are to the whole ‘Scottishness’ that is the Scottish Café.

The results, if I may say, look great. Shannon’s portraits looking every bit worthy of hanging in such esteemed surroundings. And I’m rather chuffed with my frames too. The National Gallery – who’d have thought?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrscoulter/sets/72157628192526579/

The auction (Billy’s Big Charity Auction) that I blogged about last month was a huge success and raised over £10,000 on the night, so well done to everyone involved including hubs Mike Coulter who took these brilliant photos of the event.

I have just framed a cracking photograph on behalf of Theakstons (commissioned by cor agency) which recently won an award in the UK’s biggest pub photography competition Pub Life.

It was won by acclaimed snapper Graham Cornthwaite, who co-incidentally, was unofficial photographer at our wedding 19 years ago. I say unofficial because he was actually a guest, but he had to ‘sing for his supper’ so to speak. Well done Corny!

The image makes me all nostalgic for a pint of Old Peculiar (a past favourite tipple), enjoyed in the warm and cosy interior of a good old-fashioned country boozer. Which I hope to be doing next week when we spend some much overdue quality time, renting a lovely cottage down in the Scottish Borders with my husband’s family. The workshop will be closed from 21st till the 31st October. See you in November.

There’s loads of great stuff up for grabs. Take a peek at what’s going under the hammer.

Here’s one of my favourite shots, kindly donated by David Boni, that I have framed using a simple tulip wood moulding, hand finished with a light grey wash.

The bar opens at 6pm, the auction kicks off at 8pm. Come along. Bring your wallets.

As readers of my blog will know, I framed several copies of the winning Fringe poster this year along with a number of other artworks that were exhibited at various venues across the city. In my quieter periods, I put the time to good use by doing a bit of DIY and maintenance so the outside of the workshop is looking quite neat and tidy. The new signage has been much admired and has prompted one nearby resident to say ‘I never knew there was a framer here’. (There has in fact been another framing business here for twenty years). Hopefully it will attract new customers.

I am now looking forward to my involvement in an up-and-coming charity event that takes place on Thursday 29 Sept at The Old Ambulance Depot. It’s in a very worthy cause and you can read all about it at Billy’s BIG Charity Auction page. A number of celebrated photographers from Scotland and the North of England have kindly donated limited edition, signed prints that I have the pleasure of framing. And as the organiser of the event, (Gareth Howells of Newhaven Agency) has given me free reign to do what I like, I’m having fun trying out one or two new things.

I’ll put up some images once they are finished to whet your appetite. You may even want to come along and bid!

I am pleased to say that I have just completed mounting the 2011 competition entries together with the framing of the winning poster which was announced on 1st June at the Museum of Childhood and is featured below. Big congratulations to Ailsa Purdie from the High School of Dundee for her fantastic. colourful design which will be seen by thousands of people in Edinburgh throughout the Festival. And if you pop along to the Museum of Childhood after 9th June you can see all 70 of the other competition entries from over 30 schools around Scotland.

Ailsa Purdie’s winning poster design framed in hand stained black frame.

Long before I became ‘Framer to the Fringe’, I was a fan of the Fringe. And if you are too, I’d like to offer what I hope is an attractive 20% discount for your own framing requirements throughout the duration of the Festival.

All you have to do to get your Fan of the Fringe Framing discount is bring along a ticket or ticket stub from any Fringe event when you visit my workshop on Jamaica Street, anytime before 29th August.

I look forward to seeing you and here’s to a fabulous Fringe!

Contact details.