Easy frame instructions - no ruler, no knife!

Crikey two step by steps in one day! I'll need a lie down after this - Lol! This is the second tutorial that I promised to post specially for the ladies that I saw this weekend. It's a very simple way of making a frame that you can use for shaker cards or just to simply make a picture on a card look more finished - even just as a simple frame for a photo that you may be sending through the post (don't get me started on the postage increases!). Hope you find it useful anyway.
You'll need just a few things....card to make the frame (this can be old scrap card so long as it's not creased), decorative paper to cover it with, scissors, trimmer or guillotine, pencil and adhesive. Firstly, just cut the base card to the size that you want the frame to be. I made a 5" x 5" frame in this instance. Now decide how wide you want the frame sides to be. I chose 2 cms for mine. Cut a strip of stiff card to the chosen width. A little tip here...it's quite tricky to cut narrow strips of card without them going awry on your trimmer. I always cut a piece to, say, 10 cms and then pop it back in the guillotine and measure 8cms before cutting. This leaves me with a neatly cut 2 cms strip. Much easier! Take the strip and lay it along one outside edge of the first piece of card ie the piece for the frame. Draw along the edge with a pencil. Repeat around the remaining three sides. This is so much easier, and quicker, than measuring each edge laboriously. By the way, I do usually hold my strips in place but was using my left hand to take the pictures! A tip here is to cut an assortment of strips of 1 cm, 1,5 cms, 2 cms and so on. Cut them from stiff card and write the width on each one before storing in a wallet - you will now have a set of ready made "rulers" for creating the required widths. Using scissors, cut into the centre of the card and cut to each inner corner. Now cut along each line from corner to corner to cut out the aperture. This doesn't have to be done terribly carefully - remember, this is a no craft knife frame, so it's meant to be simple! Even if your cut lines are a bit wobbly at this stage it will be fine. Now place the frame onto the back of the decorative paper, tacking it down with your chosen adhesive. I recommend a dry adhesive to avoid cockling the paper, so DST or a tape runner is best. Trim the paper to leave a 1 cm (approx!) border all round. Cut into the aperture again, corner to corner, and then trim the points off to leave about 1 cm excess paper on each side. Mitre the outside corners of paper - rather than cutting straight across I usually cut my mitres at an angle as you can see. If the paper is very thin then you might wish to fold the corners in instead of cutting them off. Fold each paper edge over and stick down onto the frame. If your paper is thick you may need to score the folds before adhering. This is why it isn't vital that your cut edges are dead straight as the folded over paper creates the neat line. Turn over to reveal a very neat and simple frame! You can use Distress ink around the edges to further enhance the frame, wrap cords or ribbon around the edges, stamp onto it etc. You can even make a padded frame by sticking strips of wadding onto the edges before covering with paper. If you are using a paper that has stripes or checks, do be sure to line them up or you may end up with something that looks a bit skew wiff (?!). And here's a very simple shaker card made with a rectangular frame around a Gorjuss topper image. Hope that helps to remind everyone that I showed this technique to last week! I'll try and post some more step by steps soon.