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Is Frame It Easy Right For My Custom Frame Project?

UPDATED: November 7th, 2022

Things that get displayed on your wall should have special significance: family photos, graduation pictures, posters of your favorite movie, or a print by an artist you love. All these — and more — are frame-worthy.

And if you’re reading this, it means you’re considering Frame It Easy for one of your photos, prints, posters, or art. We’re certainly glad to be considered, but we also want to walk you through our materials and process to ensure that we are the best possible fit for your project.

symmetrical gallery wall

We’re probably a great fit if you’re looking for:

  • an easy, fast, and affordable place to purchase custom picture frames for art less than 1/4″ thick in any size up to 42″x62″
  • a variety of quality, U.S. made frames (produced with virtually no waste) that ship anywhere in the United States
  • an option to upload your digital files for complete “ready-to-hang” print & frame fulfillment
  • granular pricing with a brand that doesn’t play pricing games (only pay for what you order without any “bundled” costs)
  • an option to White Label your order and/or use our service to aid your own business

And we’re probably not the right fit if you’re looking to:

  • frame items greater than 1/4″ thick
  • mail in your art or memories
  • have your frame(s) shipped outside of the United States
  • get “free” shipping or steep discounts

What To Expect From Our Materials (And Experience)

frame it easy pink gold gray picture frames

We cover some of this in our first-time order guide, but we figured it’d be best to retread some material territory (and expand on it).

When you order from us, you can expect an easy process, affordable pricing, and a quality product.

We always consider the cost of framing, as well as utilize automated production efficiencies to deliver on-demand, quality frames at a cost much lower than many other custom framers.

But just as there are lower-end store-bought frame options to choose from for standard sizes, there are also higher-end framing options when we get into very customized projects. These businesses usually have a much more manual assembly process, and/or make their products from exotic natural woods or more expensive metals, such as bronze, pewter, silver, and the like. While these options would no doubt produce a gorgeous result, they would also take away from the easiness and affordability of your experience.

A frame made of actual silver, bronze, or exotic stained wood could run you well over $100, even for a small size. Included, too, is the required upkeep after you hang it on the wall, which you may have to do frequently depending on the product.

If that’s what you’re looking for, we suggest finding a local or boutique framer. We’re certainly not knocking the great work done by these artisans, we’re simply saying that it’s not what we specialize in. While the frames these high-end vendors make are of a more boutique quality with a much broader range of materials, they might not be as efficient to produce, affordable to buy, or easy to maintain.

That said, everything you receive from us will look great on your wall, and it will come with all that’s required to keep it looking amazing for years to come.

Our larger frames will even come with additional hardware to prevent warping and bowing; wall brackets come with wood varieties, and our metal styles come with support wire.

Our wood frames will either be stained, painted, or wrapped in a decorative laminate to have a consistent grain-like pattern, and our metal frames are made of aluminum which has a finish that keeps it durable and attractive.

For more details, you can check out our frame styles here.

Bonus: Due to our manufacturing techniques, we produce very little scrap when making your frames — in fact, our scrap is less than 2% in an industry that averages over 20% waste! Our packaging is also custom-built and recyclable (including the plastic straps!), so you don’t have to worry about waste there, either.

What We Frame

print and frame phone photos
  • any art, memory, digital photo, poster, or puzzle up to 1/4″ thick
  • art sized 5″x5″ up to 42″x62″ in increments as small as 1/16 of an inch
  • art smaller than 5″x5,” if matting is added
  • art you already have, or digital files you can upload for printing

Our frames are mainly made for flat pictures and art, and where we really shine is in those hard-to-find, non-standard sizes.

While we could certainly make a 24″x36″ frame for you, we pride ourselves in producing frames for those oddball measurements that you probably couldn’t find anything for in your local shop. Got a 32 3/8″x12 7/16″ print that you snagged from an art show? Look no further than Frame It Easy!

(P.S. if you’re unsure what constitutes as a “hard-to-find” measurement, you can check our guide for paper sizes.)

Also, since we also live in an age with many different cameras & editing capabilities, there really is no such thing as a “standard-size” photo anymore. Your art and photos don’t have to be limited to certain sizes, therefore your frames shouldn’t be, either. (At least that’s our philosophy!)

How thick can my art be?

The maximum depths our frames can accommodate are 1/8″ for our wood frames and 1/4″ for our metal frames.

Due to the way our frames are constructed, and the “channel” in which your art sits, we specialize in framing thinner art.

Our Metal frames have room for artwork up to 1/4″ thick. This includes matting, so if your frame has a single mat the artwork shouldn’t exceed 3/16″ thick and if it is double-matted the artwork shouldn’t exceed 1/8″ thick. The spring clips that hold your art into the frame will adjust perfectly as long as your art doesn’t exceed this thickness.

Our Wood frames have room for artwork up to 1/8″ thick if they have no mats or one mat, and up to 1/16″ if they have two mats.

That means if you have a canvas or something like that, we likely wouldn’t be able to help. Most canvases exceed 1″ in thickness, which unfortunately wouldn’t fit. If, however, you do a quick search for “shadow box frames” on Google, you just might run into a business that can help!

You might think this is limiting, and while we unfortunately are unable to help a customer with a 1 1/2″ thick canvas, there are many types of art that are printed on paper — the average thickness of a sheet of paper is .0039″; which, in fraction form, isn’t even 1/16″.

Art prints, photos, drawings, posters, diplomas, certificates, and the like are all a perfect fit for our frames.

Puzzles, too, while thicker than your average sheet of paper, are typically around the 1/16″ mark, which is still within our limit. Outliers obviously exist, but we can certainly handle your average puzzle.

So, while we do have depth limitations, you still have some room to work with.

How large or small can my art be?

The smallest “Art Size” our frame designer can accommodate is 5″x5″, and it goes all the way up to 42″x62″.

5″x5″ is the smallest frame size we can safely create with our machinery, but if you have a smaller piece of art you can still frame it by adding additional matting around it.

Other Things We Can Frame

eclectic gallery wall

Our specialties as described above, though, aren’t the extent of what we can do. You can frame a lot of things through our service. And while the items in these sections are certainly less conventional, we can still accommodate them as long as they are within the parameters outlined above.

Mirrors, cross stitches, flags, quilts, scarves, and even sports jerseys are all things that customers have framed with us and have been happy with the result. (For more ideas, check out our posts on personalized picture frames, and unique things to frame.)

Just keep our measurement and thickness ranges in mind, and you are good to get framing!

If you want to find a cool piece of digital art to download and then upload to our site for printing and framing, you can check out some of our suggested places to buy art online!

Things We Unfortunately Can’t Accommodate

While we can do a lot, we can’t do everything, unfortunately.

The following are things we do not specialize in or currently can’t accommodate:

  • mailing in your art or photos to be framed
  • framing items greater than 1/4″ thick (such as gallery-wrapped canvas)
  • uploading digital files that are not .JPEG or .PNG
  • shipping outside the United States
  • free shipping or very large discounts

Why don’t we accept mailed-in art?

  1. Frames are replaceable, but a priceless photo that you have of a cherished memory may not be. And we would hate for a piece of art that you care enough about to frame to get lost or damaged in transit.
  2. It’s much faster (and easier) for the art to stay safe with you, and have you add it to the frame. Rather than wait to send us art, have us frame it, and send it back, you can order a frame in the proper size and have it in your hand in about a week (or less!)

(And don’t worry — inserting your art into is frame is easy! You can get an idea of it in our metal and wood assembly videos. )

If you have a digital photo you upload to us, we will print, mount, and frame it so it arrives at your door ready to hang.

What filetypes can we accept for digital uploads?

For any digital uploads, we can accept .JPEG and .PNG. If the file you want us to frame for you is something other than that, you would either have to source it to a different location or change the format to something we can accept (there’s software you can use to do that). We have more information on file formats in our guide to formatting digital photos.

Why don’t we offer free shipping/large discounts?

Because of our innovative, custom-built software, we’re able to optimize every single order to the best possible cost and value. With granular pricing, we take into account every frame detail (sizing, type of material, etc.) to make sure you only pay for what you order.

Our packaging is no different, and each box is custom-built to fit your products specifically, from a single frame to multiple frames. This allows us to offer fair shipping, in which we do not profit at all, rather charge you exactly what our shipping carriers charge plus raw material (even passing along our discounts!).

Our software optimizes each box’s dimensions, so we know when and if it will be cheaper for you if we send multiple boxes rather than a single oversized one. You can rest assured that you’re always getting the best shipping rate we can offer.

To offer “free” shipping, we’d have to inflate the cost of each frame to accommodate a variety of variables, meaning you would actually pay more in most cases, which we don’t see as being the best value.

Along the same lines, we rarely offer large or steep discounts because our prices are already set purposefully low. (We don’t artificially inflate them so that we can give you that 60% off coupon.)

We believe in a pricing model that is fair so everyone wins — we stay in business, and you get the best possible price on a fully customized frame.

What If You Want To Run Your Art, Photography, or Design Business Through Our Business?

Frame It Easy - online custom picture framing that is easy, fast, and affordable

In addition to framing many personal and cherished memories, many artists, photographers, and designers run their businesses through ours.

What does this mean, exactly? Well, they upload their photos/imagery to our site, we ship ready-to-hang frames straight to their clients, and the person receiving the final product — as far as they know — gets their frames straight from the artist (as none of our information is on the order).

This is called our white label service, and it’s taken advantage of by many professionals all over the country.

And there is no cost for this — simply tick the box that reads “White Label this order” on the final checkout screen and we’ll substitute your business info for ours on every piece of the order and packaging.

Whether you’re a budding designer or a seasoned professional, it would be a great way to scale additional revenue or services for your business.

For more information on all of our business services, be sure to check out our Business page.

Finding The Perfect Fit

We hope your project is right for our company, and we would love to help if we can. If you’re looking for a simple, quality custom frame that’s made in the U.S.A, we’re definitely the place!

Still not sure? Be sure to read through our first-time order guide for more on what to expect, check out our Instagram for tons of awesome customer pics, or reach out to our super-friendly support team with any questions.

Is Frame It Easy Right For My Custom Frame Project

This post first appeared as Is Frame It Easy Right For My Custom Frame Project? on Frame It Easy - Learning Center for Custom Picture Framing.

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