Sorry I didn't get back to your question on the "Gator Brides" post sooner. I'm more of a lurker now than a regular contributor, so I don't check the boards as often as I used to. To answer your question, no, the mat cutter isn't difficult to use at all! I'd never used anything like it before, but it was pretty easy to figure out. I made sure that I practiced on some scrap pieces first just so I could get the feel of it before cutting the real pieces. As long as you're good with a ruler, numbers and calculating spacing, it's really simple. Honestly, the most difficult part is figuring out where everything is going to go (I penciled the cutting lines on the back side of the mat board so I could erase any mistakes without messing up the colored side). The hardest part of the cutting is just remembering which way to feed the mat board in so that you get the bevel (the bit of white showing) cut in the right direction. We bought the mat cutter from Michael's (I wanna say it was around $90-$100) and got the mat boards from Michael's and a local art supply store (the boards are relatively cheap at about $10 each, and i was able to get enough from each sheet to do two frames. Like I said in my bio, it was a little bit of a start-up expense, but I never have to pay for any kind of framing again since I can do it all myself and everything is custom-made how I wanted it. Let me know if you have any other questions or if I can help you out with anything! Good luck with your planning and go Gators!
