A few months ago I finished my biggest cross stitch to date: an evolution of Mario from the first to the third game for the original NES. I had planned on doing this while I was pregnant but never started it. It has been finished for a while but I had wanted to frame it. I shopped around for quotes on custome framing and for what I wanted to do it would be 100-200$. I decided to get creative and try framing it myself.
I bought a shadow box, 16×20, and had a mat made by a local framing shop with a 2 inch width for 17.00. The pre-cut mats at craft stores that were 16×20 were always too thick. I bought tacks, self adhesive tape, and a gold poster board at Joanns.
I applied the NES cartridges (mine since I was a kid) in order, 1,2,3 with the self adhesive tape to the gold background. Then I took a wooden board and stretched the cross stitch around it, using tacks to pin it down. I also used self adhesive tape to hold it to the gold background.
Then the shockingly hard part. Putting the pieces in the frame. I honestly reframed it 5 times. First, the x-stitch wasn’t centered. Then, the cartridges looked uneven. Then, I saw a hair in the frame. Then, I decided to un-stretch and re-center the stitching to my liking, then re-attach. Then, I saw another of my husband’s hairs on the matting. After that I am done. I refuse to do it again.
This is the final result, which I am mostly happy with. There are a few things I would have done differently but it is still going to look kick butt in my son’s room. The total cost of framing was around 50.00. The frame was 30.00 on sale, mat was 17.00 , and I bought tacks and sticky tape. Maybe next I will do a Zelda piece?
