Frequently Asked Questions
About Us
French Photo Collage™
- How is French Photo Collage™ different from American Scrapbooking?
- What are the advantages of French Photo Collage™?
- Why did you pick the name French Photo Collage™ instead of French Scrapbooking?
French Picture Framing
- How does French Framing differ from American Framing?
- What are the advantages of French Picture Framing?
About French Techniques
About Us
Why "Léa France™" and not "Carine France?"
Yes my name is Carine (pronounce it like the English word "careen") but Léa is an acronym that is meaningful to me. L and A are the first letters of my daughters' names. The French word for "and" is "et" — hence "L" + "et" + "A" gives us "lea."
And by going into business, my goal is offer a good quality life for my entire family. It then made sense to call my business Léa France™.
French Photo Collage™
How is French Photo Collage™ different from American Scrapbooking?
The French style puts the accent on your photos, not on the embellishments. With French Photo Collage™, you use versatile stencils that can allow you to have many photos on a page. French Photo Collage™ is all about what you can create with your imagination, not your pocketbook. Why spend on embellishments when you have all you need…your great photos!!!
What are the advantages of French Photo Collage™?
- Low supply investment—rather than spending money on embellishments that you will use only once on a page, you can invest in re-usable stencils that have an immeasurable number of page layouts.
- One-of-a-kind creative designs—using your imagination; you can make full use of your pages by building unique designs that accent the BEST parts of your photos. French Photo Collage stencils are designed to be used separately and combined to create wonderful page layouts.
- Excellent for beginner scrapbookers—not ready to invest in expensive tools and supplies? All you need is a French Photo Collage stencil, a dry erase marker and a pair of scissors.
Why did you pick the name French Photo Collage™ instead of French Scrapbooking?
I decided to use the term "French Photo Collage™" as I think the focus should be on the photos. Collage is the action of gluing, pasting... it’s what you do when you do French Photo Collage™. And finally, collage is also a French term.
French Picture Framing
How does French Framing differ from American Framing?
French framing differs from American framing in the techniques used to create matting. Traditional American framing uses machines to cut 2mm or 1/8 in. bevels on a white or colored mat. The French wrap their hand-cut bevels and mats with papers from all over the world. The technique also combines different widths of matting, this allows the framer to play with depth, color, texture, and patterns in a creative way.
The other French Framing technique, known as the "French Mat" or "Lavis," comes from 18th century matting practices. This can only be done by a master framer who studied as an apprentice. The technique is comprised of hand-drawn ink lines of varying thickness, a strip of thin paper and a wash of watercolor.
What are the advantages of French Picture Framing?
- It's less expensive: First, you need just a few tools that can be covered in an average budget of $150, or even less (you would typically spend $250 for American framing tools). Second, the materials used to frame are less expensive as well. As you wrap your mats with papers, you can use all of the mat, compared to the regular mat usually used one time.
Let’s take an easy example: You want to frame three photos, each 4"x6", in three 8"x10" frames. You will have to buy three mats with three different colors. At an average price of $11 per mat, that would be $33.
With the French techniques, you will need only one mat at $6.50, plus three papers for three single mats (around $3 for the paper) so it comes to $15.50. In addition, you'll have leftover section of 8"x30" mat to use for future projects. The papers can also be used for something other than framing projects. Papers have so many applications.
- It's more creative. A large selection of papers are available, and they are often acid-free. If they are not, we can just use a special spray to de-acidify them. You have many more creative options with the papers than with a regular mat.
About French Techniques
Why French Picture Framing and French Photo Collage™? Is it typically French from France?
The French Picture Framing has been exclusive for more than 25 years, France was the only country to develop those unique framing techniques, but in the last 2-3 years, it started to spread in Europe and Japan.
The French Photo Collage™ started in France and Belgium about 10 years ago, and now has begun to spread to both Canada and Australia.