Creative Scrapbooking - Rockester - June 2001

August 2001 Feature Article

Pleated Frame Mats

by Rockester

I love mats! I think they really draw the eye to a photo. They can reinforce color schemes and they just seem to add a beautiful *extra* to any page. Because I love them so much, I usually end up matting at least half of the photos on each page. However, I get tired of my standard flat 1/8-inch and 1/4-inch mats. I have even used 'fat mats' that are 1 to 2-inches wide. Once in a while, I want a little more variety and depth on my page. Do YOU need a new look now and then? If you love to mat your photos, use beautiful papers, and want a new technique, follow me!

Pleated frames give us just enough visual 'oomph' to relieve the matting blahs. This is a look that can be very understated and elegant, super sporty, or anything in between. It all depends on the papers you chose to pleat. Don't worry! Pleated frames are not some elaborate origami thing. We will just be folding lightweight paper back and forth at marked intervals. I will show you how step by step. So let's get going. We are going throw a little fold into our mats! I love these!

Materials:

-1 or 2 pieces of identical lightweight patterned or plain 8.5x11" paper (do NOT use cardstock for this)

-ruler

-pencil

-your photo

-adhesive

Note: You may want to practice your pleating on a piece of 8.5x11” computer or typing paper before using your better scrapbooking papers. It will allow you the freedom to make a few missfolds without getting upset with the pleating process. This is a learning process and you can do it! Soon you will be confident and be making these in less than 15 minutes!

Step One: The Starting Ratio is approximately 1-inch Photo: 3-inches Paper

For landscape (wider) mode photos up to 4-inches tall, you can just use one sheet of paper for the mat. However, for portrait mode (taller) photos, you will need more paper. So, select 2 sheets that are identical and paste them together along the 8.5-inch edge. Glue neatly so the adhesives to show.

Regardless of which size photo you use, the ratio of photo height to paper height needed is about 3-inches of paper length for every 1-inch of photo height. In other words, if your photo is 4-inches tall, you need almost 12-inches in length of paper (11-inches works). If your photo is 5-inches tall you need about 15-inches of paper length, and if your photo is 7-inches tall you will need about 21-inches of paper length. (This translates to two sheets of 11-inch paper glued to make one long one 22-inch long)

Pick a lightweight mat paper that will not detract too much attention from your photo. Do not use cardstock or thick papers. It is too hard to use thick papers for the pleating and folding process. For each pleated mat you make, you will need a separate length sheet of lightweight 8.5x11" patterned paper. (See length ratio above)

Step Two: Mark the Dots

Use your ruler and your pencil and mark the back of your lightweight paper at 1/2-inch intervals along both the right and the left sides of the whole 11-inch length of your mat paper. Some people use a stylus and a ruler or their Fiskars personal trimmer with the SCORING blade to mark the straight lines for folding pleats. Be sure you use the scoring blade and NOT the cutting blade! Ü

Step Three: Pleating - Make Hills and Valleys

Now let's talk about the pleating process. When you pleat paper, it is just like pleating fabric. Don't worry! It is just a series of folds back and forth. For our pleats, you will be pleating forward 1-inch and tucking back or under the next 1/2-inch. You will then continue repeating the 1-inch pleat forward and the 1/2-inch tuck under back. From the top it will look like:

And here is a cross section or side view below. Basically we are folding hills and valleys on the pencil marks we made in step 1.

Step Four: Make the Mirror Image

Pleat 3 pleats on both sides of your center mark. Make sure they are mirror images of each other. This means that the 3 on the top of center will fold downward and the 3 on the bottom of center will fold upward. You need the folds to mirror each other so you can tuck the photo into the fold later.

Note: If you make the mistake of pleating all 6 pleats in the SAME continuous direction, it will not allow you to tuck the photo in later at both the top and at bottom! So check the direction now. Be sure the cross section looks mirrored like in the above diagram.

Step Five: Adhesive the Back to Stabilize

When your pleated mat looks the way you want it, adhesive the back of the pleats. Do not adhesive the front if you can help it. Double sided tape or tape runners work well for this kind of mat. I do not recommend liquid glues for this kind of mat. They take too long to dry and blobs tend to get on the front of the work

Step Six: Add the Photo

Once you have your pleats taped or adhered into place from the back, you can add your photo. I placed my photo in the last pleated groove from the top of the mat and from the bottom of the mat. It just tucks into the folds. There may be some leeway on how the photo fits and slides within the pleat. You can add more adhesive to the back of your photo if you prefer it not to slide from side to side within the pleated folds.

Step Seven: The Width of the Mat - At least 1.5-inches Wider than the Photo

Now that the photo is secured in the pleats, you can decide if you want to trim any off the sides of the mat. DO NOT cut too soon or cut too much! Where is pleating visible on a finished mat? The sides and top of course! So, we want the outer edges (along the width) to show off that wonderful pleated effect. To insure that the album viewer can see enough of the pleating to ohhh and ahhh over it, we will make the width of the finished mat at least one inch wider than our photo.

For a 6-inch wide photo we want between 7.5-inches wide to 8.5-inches of pleated mat. Of course, if you are using 8.5-inch background paper, you will need to make the mat only 7.5-inches wide so it fits on the 8.5-inch page. Or you can set the mat sideways on the page like the butterfly layout I did in example 1 above. Either way, allow enough width beyond your photo so that people can see the pleated mat effect and your technique.

Step Eight: Finish it off

Mount the whole pleated mat and photo onto your background paper or page. Add any decorations, title, and journaling you desire. I use page protectors on pleated pages too so little fingers don't snag the pleat folds. Doesn't it look great? What a fresh look! And the more of these you do, the easier they are. Soon, you will be able to pleat a mat in about 10 minutes! All your friends will be asking you to teach them how to do it!

Use white or solid colors and the pleating looks almost like mini-blinds or pleated curtains. The SPRING layout above shows how a solid color pleated mat works well with a patterned background, hand-water colored lettering, and some 3-d cut out butterfly accents. Once you learn this technique you can experiment with different pleat marking widths as small as 1/4 inch or up to 1 or 2 inches!

A Fun Variation: Supersize It!

Pretend you are at McDonald's and SUPERSIZE your pleated mat! Once you know how to make a small pleated mat, try this.

Connect three sheets of lightweight 8.5x11" paper together along the 8.5" edges and create a super sized pleated background sheet! Take three separate but identical 8.5x11" sheets of pretty paper and glue them together. You should let the adhesive dry completely. You will end up with a 'long' sheet of paper that now measures approximately 8.5-inches wide x 21 or 22-inches long. Mark it with your pencil using the ½-inch markings. Pleat it as we did the smaller photo mat above. It should make a mat large enough to almost cover a full background piece of cardstock paper.

You can then tuck in several photos! This is a great way to showcase small pictures or school wallet photos. I recommend using a cardstock album page or background behind the pleated mat for this one as it is fairly heavy when completed. Use a strong adhesive like Hermafix, photo splits, or other heavy (but not liquid) adhesive.

Have some fun! Go fold some pretty mats today! And I DO NOT mean folding the laundry! I would rather fold this kind of mat ANY day! Wouldn't you? LOL

Happy Scrapping!

~Rockester~