Design of the Week

Graduation Box for a young Sports Star!

Proud parents arrived in the shop with this high school jersey and a career's worth of meticulously collected clippings and senior year mementos for their star athlete graduate.  They arranged the items on my design table like this:

Okay.  That looks cool, but how am I going to attach all those little slips of paper to the fabric of the jersey?  No matter.  That's for me to figure out.  Later.  I took the job and promised it on time for the big graduation party.  What a great thing to have there!

I turned to my trusty fusion film and fused everything onto a 4ply solid core black mat.  Then I carefully trimmed everything out, taking care to bevel all the sides out for a more finished look.

Then I hand-sewed the jersey to the linen backing mat we selected (it matches the text) using clear heavy-gauge monofilament.

And then I did figure out how to get all those little clippings on the jersey.  And I did it with out using any adhesives whatsoever on the jersey.  Yes I did.  Bully for me, and I'm not telling!  :P  This jersey could come out of this box one day completely unscathed, and that is the job of a conservation framer.

So, I made the frame (44 x 34!), cut the glass, and made sidewalls to complete the box.  I always use two methods of adhesion:  glue and super ATG.

And finally, put on the recommended hardware:  wall buddies.  Yeah, I know the name is really cutesy, but these really are the best for pieces of this size and weight.  They put the least amount of stress on the frame joints and also hold the frame close to the wall without the annoying slant that sometimes happens with wire.  They're pretty easy to install, too.

I love how this turned out!

Congrats, Grad!