Awkward...

So…I haven’t had much time for Christmas crafting lately…but I have definitely been doing some crafting... 

Interested? Well, you might regret that after you see this… 

Yep, that is a framed picture of my cat BB. 

Oh and here’s another one of my cat Cow. 

  OK, before you think we have officially lost our minds, let me explain. I made these as a gift. 

Yes, a gift.

I made these for The 3^rd Annual Awkward Office Decoration Party.  

Quick definition: An Awkward Office Decoration Party is kind of like an extreme White Elephant Party. Basically, everyone brings the most awkward, ugly, embarrassing thing they can find, and then we exchange them White Elephant Style. However, the catch of an Awkward Office Decoration Party is that you must proudly display the present you receive in your cubical for an entire year. Yep, no matter what it is you have to claim it as your own all year long. 

(BTW, sorry for the lack of photos in this post...they were kind of an after thought).  

So, N8dogg and I brainstormed for months on this one, and finally came up with the idea to frame pictures of our cats. Because seriously, what is more awkward than framed and matted pictures of your cats?

I started by asking my local print shop to enlarge some pictures of our cats (believe it or not, we actually had these pictures on hand...pathetic I know). The picture of BB is an 11x17, but since the picture of Cow was square it is only and 11x11, it's still plenty big though.
They just printed them on the normal printing paper that they use, and it cost me about $2.00 for both prints.

The original idea was to Mod Podge the prints onto foam board. However, that did not turn out at all like I had imagined. I bought my foam board from the dollar store for, well a $1.00, and it ended up being too hard to cut with my exacto knife. The prints ended up looking OK, but it was apparent that they needed to be framed in order to cover up the edges.

 

My search for the “perfect” frames started at the DI, and it did not disappoint. I wish I had taken pictures of what was originally in these frames because they were awesome. It cost me $7.00 for both frames, but the look on they guy’s face that checked me out was priceless. 

 

I had the red mat on hand from another project. It's just a poster sized picture mat that you can find in the framing section of the craft store.