DIY Picture Mat in Four Simple Steps!

I adore the cool, coastal-inspired colors of summer. Combine these colors in vellum on this pretty DIY picture mat – the results are gorgeous!

Skills Required: None. Even if you’ve never Mod Podged before, you’ll be able to do this project. You’ll be cutting squares and decorating matboard with Mod Podge.

I adore the cool, coastal-inspired colors of summer. Combine these colors in vellum on this pretty DIY photo mat - the results are gorgeous!

Hello, Mod Podge fans! It’s Linda here, from burlap+blue, with another tutorial for you! I don’t know about you, but I adore the cool, coastal-inspired colors of summer.

Blues, greens, grays-to me, they are so calming, yet so beautiful. When you combine those colors with the watery, stained-glass look of vellum, you get something truly amazing: like a gorgeous DIY picture mat! Let’s get started . . .

DIY Picture Frame Mat

Materials:

Matboard – precut or uncut
Mod Podge Gloss
Vellum
Paper cutter
Foam brush
Craft knife and mat (optional)

Step 1: Gather your materials. I found my vellum at Hobby Lobby, and purchased the frame from Michaels. I chose four different colors of vellum the blue and white are more transparent, and the gray and green are more on the opaque side.

Step 2: Using a paper cutter, cut vellum into 1 inch squares. I used about half of the vellum for this project.

Ahh…aren’t those colors pretty? I’m feeling calmer already 🙂

Step 3: Take the vellum squares and your Mod Podge, and adhere the vellum to the mat. For the first layer, I pretty much just lined them up, letting them overlap slightly. The image below shows the mat after my first layer of squares.

Step 4: I wanted a little more translucence and randomness to the mat, so I went back and added about a dozen more squares of vellum randomly to the mat.

I used all white and blue pieces (the more translucent pieces), to get more of the stained-glass look I was going for. I then added one coat of Mod Podge to seal.

And there you have it! I adore the watery, transparent look of the piece. Instead of a photo, I framed up one of my very favorite summertime quotes.

Thank you so much for letting me share my DIY picture mat with you all today! If you enjoyed this project, I’d love for you to check out these other ideas: