Wallpaper Matboards

[ahohen]

A customer with a piece of wallpaper a few weeks ago she absolutely loved and wanted to know if i had a matboard at least similar to it. I had nothing even close to it (special texture). I told her i could mount it to a scrap piece of matboard (museum quality matboard) and it can be cut as a typical matboard. She loved the idea, went home and came back with with a print a friend gave her as a "remodeling" gift. The wallpaper (and a selected bottom mat) went super with the print. I framed it. She picked it up, brought it home and hung it. Before she left, i jokingly told her that if anyone asks about the top mat to tell them I "had it in stock". (lol) She did. After a few phone calls I called the lady and asked her where she got the wallpaper from. I picked up 3 rolls, which were "double rolls" (Home Depot!!), cut and mounted the wallpaper to discontinued or "surface damaged" museum quality matboards, resulting in 18 sheets (costing me a total of about $9.00/sheet) of a very attractive and "unique" matboard. In the past 12 work days I sold over half of it (I have 7 full sheets, 8 fairly large cut-outs... 20 x 24 or larger, and 12 small cut-outs... l1 x 14 or larger remaining)... and still get phone calls about it so i will be picking up a few more rolls.

Questions: Is anyone doing so NOW or have tried this in the past? What was (or IS) your results? What is your markup (I charge approx. $32.00 for a 24-36)?

Thanks for any info.

 

[wpfay]

Yes, including bookbinder's paper, grasscloth, antique vellum, crumpled tissue, maps, wrapping paper, Japanese rice paper, leather...etc.
I would figure the pricing on the incremental steps. Mats cost, drymount cost, specialty material cost. The only down-side is if the company discontinues the pattern you need,, but that's a risk we face from pre-finished mats already.
Mounting to good quality board is noble and smart to save those mats that have surface defects, but the end product is by no means archival. The paper stock and the inks are of unknown composition so the resultant board should only be used in decorative applications.

 

[shopmonkey cpf]

i did just that yesterday! very unique---also very ugly. thats the paper the client wanted however. it was a mottled foil (silver, gold, and copper) looked just awful on these primary colored cubist-like pastel drawings...yuck!