The "Another Satisfied Customer!" Story

Preface:  I write this part of my story about a week after I published it.  It came to my attention, while the owner was viewing my work, that I inadvertently sewed the two red and yellow patches upside down.  I also had the belt buckle inverted.  I apologized, but what you will see here is the incorrect presentation of the patches and buckle.  Please accept my apology for my mistake.

 It was an ordinary day. Standing in front of the workbench at Grebinger Gallery listening to Keith giving me the instructions needed to perform the job I have been given for the morning.  I have been working at the gallery and frame shop for almost 20 years now after retiring from teaching photography and graphic arts at nearby Manheim Township High School in Lancaster, County, Pennsylvania.  One of my students happened to be the young man that is now giving me my instructions for the day.  I am to mat and frame a United States Marine Corps Honorable Discharge Certificate along with a Marine Corps dress belt, arm patches, a US flag logo, medals, a variety of pins and the soldier's dog tag.  I had to cut openings in two pieces of suede mat board to allow for a photo of the soldier as well as the certificate and then sew everything else to the boards.  These boards would be placed about 1/2" below another set of blue and red suede mat boards that had an opening cut in them to expose the sewn pieces.  Sound too tough to follow?  How about I just take you through the process with a few photographs.

I have cut a sample matboard with two openings that will hold the photo, certificate and all the other pieces.  My sample is cut to make sure everything will fit in place, since the suede matboard is expensive and I don't want to make a mistake when I cut it.   At the very top of the photo you can see the frame sample I am to use.  To the right is the blue/red double mat that I cut to match the sample after I made sure everything will fit on it. 

Here I have placed the certificate in position and the small photo of the soldier.  I placed the arm patches on the corner and the flag logo and will stitch them to the mats using fishing line and a needle.

These are some of the tools needed to do this job.  The fishing line with heavy-duty needle, an awl to help punch holes, a fingernail brush to keep the suede clean and the hot-glue gun to attach some of the medals.

This project used Museum Glass which protects the items under it from harmful rays as well as will eliminate  reflection.  I cut the glass with the glass-cutter I have in my right hand.

Here you can see that I have sewn the patches in the top corners as well as the flag on the top.  The dog tag was hot-glued in place and I sewed the chain so it fills the area  around it.  The belt on the bottom was sewn in place, but the buckle had to be hot-glued onto the belt so it wouldn't move.  The pins were hot glued in place.  

Here I am holding the final result.  You can see how I have added an extra layer of matboard around the edge of the job pictured above.  The black/gold frame is about 2 inches high and a half inch thick.  The job was about three feet square.

The customer loved the final result. It took about three hours to complete the entire project.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.