Act I
October
I ordered a lovely print off DeviantArt when they were having a free shipping sale (even to Canada!). My print arrived, and all was good, except I didn’t have a frame or anything for it, and I didn’t want to just hang it naked. 12″x18″ is a hard size to find, apparently, though this may be because I didn’t go to any real framing stores because I couldn’t afford them. I just looked all over, and then kept an eye out anywhere that sold frames.

Act II
Present day
I was at Michaels Arts & Crafts (in Hamilton) for an unrelated purpose, and while I was there I found a 13×19 frame. Joy! I figured that was close enough; I could centre the poster inside it, and if I was lucky, the black paper inside the frame would match closely enough to the black background of the print that the frame would look filled in when it was hanging on a wall. A while later, I found a 12×18 frame! More joy! It was even 50% off! I put the 13×19 back, and bought my 12×18, feeling very good. I was going to be able to hang my print!

Act III
I got home, carried all the other stuff into the house (the trip was actually to head to IKEA with my Christmas gift certificate to get a table from the front hall) and then ran into the living room. I tore open the wrapping on the frame and unlatched the back. This was going to be so great! I pulled the poster from the protective plastic and carefully placed the poster into…

… into the…

…frame…

It didn’t fit! Tragedy!

The poster is 12×18, but the frame most decidedly is not. It’s more like 11.5. The 12×18 designation isn’t an outer measurement, either, since the frame itself measures about 13″ wide.

Now I have a fake 12×18 frame and have nothing to put into it, and I have an actual 12×18 print without a frame. *sad face*