We write this post "COVID killed picture framing, true or false dichotomy?" by way of a hopeful obituary to the dreaded COVID pandemic which, and 
though largely on the wane, disrupted most nations around world and nearly everyone's life during the last couple of years or so. With a focus on the picture framing industry, the epidemic appears to have had vastly different business results, depending on which sector, or specialization of the industry a business practised. This was certainly true in our case since our two main income streams were, and still are, the making of custom picture frames, and the ...
Picture Frames, Picture Framing and Picture Framers' Blog
Welcome to our weblog about picture framers, picture frames and picture framing. It is published with the goal to share information, knowledge, tips, ideas and opinions about this industry. All posts are grouped in the sections listed below. For help with orders, visit our Help and FAQs or use the Contact page.
About our News Blog
We have been picture framing for a long time, since the late 1970's. Then, Malcom Fraser was our Prime Minister and 200,000 or more Asian migrants and boat people were settling here, helping to make Australia multiracial and multicultural. This was a long time ago. In those days, the picture framing industry was adolescent, fit, strong, healthy and growing all the time. Now, around half a century later, the once youthful industry is sadly decrepit.
It is moribund, impotent and almost infirm but the infirmity is not due to ageing or industrial decrepitude. Rather, it slowly became so because of global, technological, economic and political events and circumstances beyond its ken and control. By and large, the competitiveness engendered by the internet, the dismantling of import duties and tariffs, and our high domestic wages, disproportionate to those of our leaner, meaner and hungrier competitors, have all contributed to the slow strangulation and destruction of our local industry.
Sure, there are still isolated, scattered, tenacious survivors, like ourselves, but your local street, or shopping centre picture framer has pretty much disappeared. This is because, and in the main, our Customers find our locally-made products and services too expensive. Alas, we have outsmarted ourselves. We kept awarding ourselves such high wages for so long that now, most Customers cannot afford our picture frames and our framing factories have all closed down. Vale, Australia Picture Framers!
Nevertheless, and during all these years, experiences were gathered and lessons learnt, about picture frames, picture framing and our industry, such as it once was. Rather than forsake these rich legacies of small business and suburban manufacturing histories to become unremembered and be forgotten, we have retrieved and curated these here, under the mantle of this News Blog of posts, or blogs. Enjoy!
The Norman Lindsay Limited Edition Etchings
Posted on Category: The Art WorldTo write about the Norman Lindsay Limited Edition Etchings that were created by one of Australia's, if no the most, 
prominent artist is a formidable task! However this post is neither an essay nor a disquisition on one of Australia's most famous sons. Our intention here is merely to provide a working snapshot of the artist's work within the context of just one of the several arts he transcended, that of his art on paper, or etchings. Although Norman Lindsay, ( NL ) excelled in writing, painting, sculpting, poetry, prose, cabinetry and other artistic fields, it is by way of his famous etchings that the general public know of him. Indeed, and so far as we concerned ...
The shadow box deconstructed
Posted on Category: Picture Frames ComponentsWe sell a fair few shadow boxes all over Australia and we find that most Customers 
know what a 3-Dimensional Shadow box is, how it is made and what it can be used for. But once or twice a month we receive phone call inquiries from "newbies". These newcomers want to know what a shadow box is and can they use it to put what they want inside it. As these types of box picture frames are a little complicated, have multiple components with size limitations, clearances, depth limits, etc, it can be a little difficult to precisely explain and convey all these aspects to Customers on the telephone, hence this post. To begin with, we don't really know for sure how ...
Picture frames pests, intruders and akin insectiferous invaders
Posted on Category: How to care for picture frames
Somewhat like thieves of the night who break into unguarded houses, picture frames can also suffer several, unwelcome, 
covert pest insect species which sneak inside picture frames and photo frames. Mostly, these enter a picture frame receptacle via the rear, where the back, or backing of the frame, is; and occasionally, through the from where the glass is. We are able to say this since part and parcel of our trade is the repair, maintenance and cleaning of old and often much loved, picture frames. And this is when we witness, first hand, the problems these pests often create. Surreptitiously, these live inside picture frames attracted ...
The changing life and times of picture frames mouldings
Posted on Category: Custom Picture Framing Picture frame mouldings? What are these? Well, let’s clarify it! These are long 
sticks of wood, often between 2.5 to 3.5 metres long, from which picture framers cut the sections of wood needed to make up picture frames. Picture framers order these sticks, or moulding lengths, in big boxes of various sizes from specific picture framing moulding suppliers. Note the adjective “specialized” within the phrase picture framing moulding? That’s needed because your local hardware store might also sell wood mouldings, but most certainly not picture framing mouldings. When four or more ...
Updating, uplifting and upgrading picture frames
Posted on Category: Custom Picture FramingWhy this post about upgrading picture frames? Because it's happened to you as it's happened to most, if not to all of us, at one time of our lives or another. You’ve
moved out of your old home into a new one. Or you’ve moved from an older flat into a newer apartment. Perhaps you relocated from older style business premises to more modern ones. The end result is the same, either you, your wife, or family have decided, the old frames just won’t do in the new location, these will need updating. We come across this situation a few times a month, in most cases, it’s a retiree couple moving to a brand-new apartment. Regardless of the circumstances the ...
How to cheaply replace broken glass in a picture frame
Posted on Category: D.Y.O. photos and frames
This post on how to replace broken glass in a picture frame, was prompted by an innocent enough Customer remark on the cost of reglazing 
( replacing old glass with new glass in a picture frame, whether broken or not ) a picture frame that someone had inadvertently stepped on. The remark was to the effect "Why does it cost so much to to get new glass put in a picture frame?" Now, the picture was about 50 x 50cms and the cost quoted was $37.74 which, by the way, we believe to be a fair and reasonable. Nonetheless the Customers persisted with his query in wanting to know the exact pricing formula. We didn't disclose it ...
Of picture frames on picture ledges and of picture frames on walls
Posted on Category: Picture Framing IndustryWe can reasonably surmise that walls, shelves, window sills, fireplace mantels, floors and chairs even, have always served as either hanging, resting, or standing 
points for photo frames and picture frames for centuries. But it is only in these last few years that ledges and floating shelves, upon which picture frame may be rested upon, have become a fashion's must-have. All the display homes, homewares and department stores seem to be replete with them, in all shapes, colours and sizes. Many home owners are also a little nervous at the prospect of having to design and install a wall gallery system. Not only there’s the main commitment problem of having to make holes everywhere, but ...
Taking the puzzle out of framing jigsaw puzzles
Posted on Category: Custom Picture FramingOn the subject of picture framing jigsaw puzzles, it must be said that there must have been, and still must be, hundreds of people putting together 
puzzles together right now all over Australia. Our various statal, work and home restrictions, lockdowns and quarantines have pretty much driven a lot of people bonkers with boredom. And since ennui and accidie are the enemies of our naturally wandering, imaginative and creative minds, it is little wonder that so many of us have sought some relief from this depressing state of mental affairs by tiling, assembling and solving puzzles. Interestingly, jigsaw puzzles have been around for about 250 years.
The commercialization, if not the ...
When to, or not to, repair broken picture frames
Posted on Category: Custom Picture Framing
Most of our blogs and posts here are a direct result our interaction with our Customers and the 
feedback we receive from them, for which we are grateful. One sunny ( sometimes a rarity here in Melbourne ) Saturday morning a young mum visited us bringing an A3 frame with a broken glass. She asked if had a frame to match, which we did, the frame being a pretty much standard 3x2 cms box moulding picture frame profile. We showed her one of our frames and she was on the cusp on buying it when she asked, pretty much by way of a ...