The Framing Trick: How to Mat and Frame Thrift Store Textiles for High-End Wall Art

I have a soft spot for the textiles bin at the thrift store. While most people are hunting for vintage crewneck sweatshirts or mid-century oil paintings, I head straight for the linens, scarves, and table runners. Over the years, I’ve pulled out hand-embroidered flour sack towels, vintage silk pocket squares, Indian block-print napkins, and even a stained linen table runner that had a gorgeous geometric border hiding in one corner.

Most people pass these over because they look rumpled and useless sitting in a heap. But with the right framing technique, you can turn a five-dollar piece of fabric into high-end wall art that looks like it came out of a boutique framing studio.

The secret weapon to making a piece of fabric look expensive isn’t the fabric itself—it is the mat board. Without a proper mat, a framed textile looks like a limp washcloth trapped behind glass. Here is how I scour the thrift aisles for textiles and turn them into statement pieces for my walls.

Finding and Prepping the Fabric

When you are looking at textiles, you want to train your eye for structure and texture. Look for materials with weight: heavy linen, tight-weave cotton, wool, or raw silk. Lightweight polyester scarves often slide around and trap too much moisture against the glass, so I generally stick to natural fibers.

Before you even think about framing, you have to prep the textile. Wash it gently by hand if it has that thrift store smell, and roll it in a clean towel to press out excess water. Never wring out delicate embroidery.

The most important step here is ironing—or better yet, starching. Lay the textile face down on an ironing board and get it completely crisp. If it is cotton or linen, use a heavy spray starch. You want the fabric to be rigid and completely flat, without any rolling edges, because once it is trapped behind glass, every single warp and weave will cast a shadow.

The Custom Mat Trick

Standard frames with cardboard backings will eventually ruin vintage textiles because the acids in cheap paper eat away at natural fibers. More importantly, framing a textile right up to the edge of the glass looks cheap. You need breathing room.

Instead of buying custom mats—which can cost upwards of fifty dollars a piece—I buy oversized frames with standard mat openings, or I cut my own mat board using a utility knife and a metal straightedge.

Here is my favorite trick: floating the textile on an oversized mat.

If I find a small textile, like a twelve-inch square vintage handkerchief with a floral border, I don’t try to cram it into a twelve-inch frame. Instead, I buy an eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch frame with a mat opening meant for an eight-by-ten photo. I use the mat board as a solid white or cream field, and I mount the handkerchief directly in the center of it. That sudden expanse of negative space around a tiny, detailed piece of fabric is what instantly mimics high-end gallery art.

How to Mount Without Damaging the Piece

Never use hot glue, rubber cement, or heavy tape on vintage textiles. If you ever want to wash the piece or sell it, permanent adhesives will ruin it.

Instead, I use acid-free mounting board (foam core works in a pinch) cut to fit snugly inside the frame.

• Lay your pressed textile face down on a clean flat surface.
• Place your cut-to-size acid-free backing board directly on top of the back of the textile.
• Using small pieces of low-tack artist’s tape or acid-free linen hinging tape, pull the edges of the fabric gently taut and secure them to the back of the board.
• Work your way around like you are lacing a corset: pull the top, then the bottom, then left, then right. You want enough tension to pull out any ripples, but not so much that you distort the weave of the fabric.

Once the fabric is anchored to the backing board, place your mat board over the front, drop the whole sandwich into the frame, and secure the back tabs.

Where to Hang Them

Because textiles absorb sound rather than reflecting light, they add an incredible layer of warmth to a room that glass-covered photography just can’t touch. I love hanging framed textiles in places that need a little softness: narrow hallway walls, above a bedside table, or tucked into a gallery wall arrangement alongside traditional paintings.

Taking the time to hunt down unique fabrics and frame them properly gives your home a curated, collected-over-time feel that mass-produced big-box art simply cannot replicate.

As you start planning your next weekend DIY project and gathering your supplies, take a look at the frames and mat boards you might need to bring your latest textile find to life.