Decorate any wall in your home with this easy project - tinted antique postcards matted with Chinese silk fabric.

The palest shades of Chinese silk fabric bring out the soft colour of tinted antique postcards. You can find cards such as these at antique shops and collector shows. Choose a theme if you like, and look for cards that share the same colour palette but emphasize different colours. For the fabric, look for colours that match a colour in the card.

You will need:
- Mat board cut to fit the images and the frames
- Silk fabric at least 5 cm larger than the mat board
- Craft-weight, paper-backed fusible webbing
- Iron and pressing cloth
- Pencil
- Archive quality tape
- Heavy white paper
- Picture frames

Here's how:
1. Fuse the webbing to the wrong side of fabric.

2. Place mat on wrong side of fabric and trace around the outer edge. At the picture opening, draw an 'X', connecting opposite corners.

3. Cut along 'X' and 2.5 cm outside outer-edge lines. Remove paper backing.

4. Position fabric over mat. With fabric facing up, cover mat with a press cloth. Fuse fabric to mat according to manufacturer's directions. Do not iron beyond the edge of mat board. Turn over and draw excess fabric to back side of mat. Repeat fusing process on back side.

5. Use tape to secure postcards to paper and paper to back of mat.

6. Install matted postcards in frames.

Design Tip:
Do not use glass with fabric-covered mats. Moisture trapped between the glass and mat may cause the fabric to rot. If you do use glass, place spacers between the glass and mat so the glass does not sit directly on the fabric.