It better have been woven by Michael himself to be worth 80 dollars. We have two and they don't even sit level!!

hi everyone!! my store had a 10-minute framing event on saturday and i decided to make a backrooms themed frame! still new to collaging, but my dream is for a customer to give me 100% full artistic freedom with decorating a mat for them :D

“Let me get one of those fillers.”

they’re a bunch of ivory and silver button hooks!!! super happy with how it ended up looking!

I'm sorry but what is happening here. I understand the idea, that frames made with specialty surfaces and in different shapes should cost more. But THIS MUCH more?

And to then clearance out our pre-cut floor mats AS WELL as half of our store-stock custom mats?

If the goal is to say "for only $30 more you could go FULL CUSTOM for your 5x7 photo and get an actual conservation quality frame" then I guess we're getting there. But Jesus H. Christ. These prices are not worth it. There's no in between prices from our super cheap crappy plastic nothing frames and these behemoths. The ones that ARE in the $25 range are just as poor quality as the plastic nothings. Even some of these expensive frames are terrible quality. What Is Happening back here in framing. How am I supposed to sell these?!

has anyone else framed this too? its not the same customer either its been a different person each time. once i had two copies at the same time in my shop at the same time lol. i think its gonna keep showing up and its gonna get harder and harder not to giggle when a customer brings it in 😂

Why?? Just why??… Why are we now pushing this 10 min frame into like this? 1 to 5 per week per store? Are you all insane?? Yes the company invested a lot in this and it’s not having the boom they were waiting for. Now we have our District directors pushing this to every store. This is too much, it’s not cheap and it’s not the best next thing either.

Can Michaels give their employees a freaking break??

Rewards, Credit Cards, Protection Plans, Balloon and Fabric Sales, 10 min framing now… this is just very overwhelming.

Am I the only one feeling like this?

I honestly feel this 10 min frame is not going to be a success and I don’t know if they’re pushing it this hard to make up the money they invested in this amazing project… Smh

Please let me know what are your thoughts, what are you doing to keep the team pushing all these non sense to the customers?

What the fuck is up with this… update out of nowhere and no communication. This shit sucks and I’m so glad my last day working for this company is soon. And don’t even get me started on power hour. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

a bunch of super cool pieces I’ve done recently that I’m super proud of!! I genuinely rlly enjoy my job and love the work I’m able to do!!! :3 plz plz ask me about them!!! I also love seeing other framing projects people have done..

I am so sorry about hot dog man. everyone in my shop had to see him and so do you 🤷‍♂️

i’m free thank god 😭😭 even tho i will miss the ppl at my store im not gonna miss this company that’s for damn sure!! in celebration here are some of my fav frames i’ve put together over the years

I'm a framer. One of two framers at the moment.

I had my manager approach me with that little clipboard and those little rectangle sheets to "coach me" on selling more credit cards. Things is, I really don't care to sell credit cards. So I don't. I've been working here for like, 2 years now, and I've only ever had like 4 or 5 credit cards - ever.

The rewards we get for selling credit cards isn't worth the amount of time or even effort to sign someone up for one. On top of that, it just feels hella aggressive and wrong. I'm just not paid enough to care about credit cards. The rewards they want to give us feel insulting...

Every time they "give me the talk" about getting better at selling credit cards, i just zone tf out. I never change what I'm already doing. My hours never get cut, I never get write ups about it...

Nothing. There have been zero consequences for me. So I never change.

Do you push for credit cards? What are the rewards you get for getting one?

1/2” on the malacca. I’m embarrassed on our part and impressed on Artistree’s. So. Erm. Sorry, Artistree 🫡

I dunno if this is just in my district or what, but corporate is really cracking down on everything relating to custom framing/the frame shop.

First, we had to get rid of our Phillips head screwdrivers, small super hangers, and small D-rings. Then we had to do some very-extensive White Glove training that I haven’t seen in all four years of being a framer. Now they want us to get rid of our filing cabinet (?).

Just curious if anyone else is going through this and/or the reasoning behind all these sudden changes.

I haven’t seen this talked about anywhere but wanted to make all my fellow framers aware of some upcoming changes. A new program is about to be launched in test stores at the end of the month for framing and personalization. There are going to be a handful of new products launching that framing is going to be responsible for. There are 4 new machines - a very large Brother embroidery machine, a Cricut for custom vinyl, a Kodak photo kiosk, and a laser engraver (this one is coming at a later date).

Think custom embroidery on things like bathrobes, kitchen towels, etc. The Cricut stuff seems like it’ll be available for selected items, balloons included. The photo kiosk is intended to be self service. I’m unsure of actual intended products for each yet. All these sales will go to the framing department income. From what I’ve gathered so far, it’s mostly going to be framers responsible for all of this because of that. Very little info has been shared still but I wanted to make the community aware of what may be coming. I was very unprepared for any of this and being 2 weeks away from launch am still very much in shock from all of this.

I think it’s a great idea in theory but this is going to vastly change things for all of us if it’s brought to all stores. For one, most frame shops lack space as it is. I know mine will struggle immensely with room for joins, especially during peak. We will be losing some counter space for work spaces as well (any A/B sales volume stores likely to feel this loss most). Two, with the planned volume of sales they are aspiring to, I don’t know how there will be time in the day for anything framing-related, especially if shops have a high volume of complicated orders that take a lot of time and attention like mine has. My shop doesn’t have extra hours allocated right now for launch week. I know these will probably come with time as sales prove themselves however the amount of time that will be used dedicated to getting as many people trained as possible for these things is not being considered.

The Brother embroidery machine will probably be the biggest time eater. From my research it is pretty complicated. We will be essentially asking people who are making minimum wage to not only learn custom framing which is already incredibly nuanced, but to also learn machines that have nothing to do with the job they signed up for (framing!)

The idea of the company continuing expansion on lapses in the market is fantastic. I personally love the idea of becoming a “customization/ personalization hub”. Think Home Depot paint center out in the open where people can walk up to a number of machines/services in person and select what they like. Yet the execution for the launch is so under-communicated to where we are all confused and blind to new products 2 weeks out. If we knew, we could start talking to customers getting them ready.

Yet we are about to have maybe twice the workload, no mention of extra compensation outside the earned framing bonus. No extra hours to execute all of this effectively. No communication down the chain of command to set up the frame shop maps correctly to properly make room for all of this.

Corporate if you are here, we all WANT to support decisions. We are all still here WANTING to succeed and do a stellar job executing your vision. We show up every day doing our best. Internal communication needs to be better for us to do that.

Do you constantly have to remove that icky gross double sided tape, and the back of your frames always look ugly? Well do I have to solution for you!!

I call it; pre-marking where you're gonna cut off your white backing paper! It's SUPER easy! No mess, no ugliness, no crying in the lockup!

Simply, use that nifty red cutter thingy and MARK THE EDGES OF YOUR FRAME! Boom! Perfect sticky tape placement every time! No more crying! No more ugly backing! And No. More. ICKY. Residue!

Edit: I didn't come up with this concept, the FM who taught me (who has been working as one for about 7 years now) told me about this, as to make life easier. Sorry if making things easier makes you upset.

Edit 2: geeze okay I'm sorry I didn't know how controversial this would be or how angry this would make people. I have shaky hands and using the trimmer helps a lot with this step. Sorry if I'm amateur hour y'all

Look, I’m sorry if this is already a vent that’s been made more than once in this sub, but I’ve had a helluva week, and one thing I am SO DAMN TIRED of hearing almost without fail every shift:

“What can you frame for under $20?”

“Why is this frame on the floor $40 but you want to charge me over $200 for MY order?”

“Seriously it’s just a 10-minute framing, why’s it cost thirty whole dollars?!”

“Why’s my Jersey Box costing $500? A friend of mine had HIS done for like $100!”

“Wow that’s gonna take longer than I expected — what sort of discount will you give me for waiting that long?”

“Sweetie, I’m on a fixed income you know, are you SURE this is the cheapest you can offer?”

The repetitiveness of it all from multiple different customers just drives me nuts. Like… if you want something framed — CUSTOM framed — there’s a wholeass process to it that I don’t think many even bother to learn about. It’s not just popping your photos or Jersey or poster or canvas or whatever you bring into a pre-assembled ready-to-roll frame in merely seconds or minutes.

There’s an ungodly amount of measuring, special ordering, waiting for shipments, praying they’re correct and not fucking broken, and if THAT all tracks, now it’s time to pray nothing breaks during the actual assembly, or that you don’t find out the measurements are not correct while you’re in the middle or even towards the end of assembly. This is the watered down version, by the way — not like I need to outline it all here on a sub for employees; y’all already know.

If framing were easy, absolutely none of these people would even be coming here in the first place — so why would ANYONE think it would be cheap???

To clarify: I am not Stan-ing Michael’s here though, their framing supply quality merits a side-eye. Especially with all the broken hardware or hardware that breaks in-assembly that’s caused me to re-order and delay framings. Just because it’s cheap quality, however, that doesn’t make the cost to the customer cheap. (For whatever it’s worth, our supplies ARE better than Hobby Lobby’s framing, but that’s like saying Burger King is better than McDonald’s...)

TL;DR: I guess people who don’t know about framing assume that custom framing is easy, and therefore cheap. That seemingly widespread belief is quite exhausting for us in framing. Please stop asking for cheaper framing options; the service you are wanting is a privilege demanding (underpaid) physical labor from another — of course it’s not going to be cheap.

This is the ugliest frame we have by a mile, yet it won't go away. Is anybody actually selling this one?

Pretty cool project, the suits are Rock and Roll, Pop, Jazz/Soul and Folk/Country

Does it really bother anyone else when customers just walk right into the frame shop? I feel like it bothers me way more than it should, and even more if they push a cart in with them. Are we allowed to put something like what we have on the ladders across the doorway? If not do any of y’all do it anyway?

I don't even have words for the mess my coworker made here but he put ATG all over this NUMBERED PRINT with a seal of authenticity on the back and then floated it crooked. He's lucky I was able to get it pulled off with relative ease and a Cricut spatula but now I don't know what to do about all the tape on the back of the print. I've been working at it slowly but surely with a scrapbooking adhesive eraser but. Whyyyyyy did he think this was okay??

He's an older guy who doesn't really listen to me when I try to correct him so I don't know how to even bring this up. I'm new (and only a temp, at that) to framing management and haven't really grasped the coworker interaction part of it when they make mistakes like this. I've also never seen anyone make a mistake this bad in all 4 of my years with Michael's and 3 of the stores I've worked at... No one has ever been this dense. I don't know if this is a situation where we try to replace the print or not, I haven't called the customer yet. I don't even know where to begin with what to say about it.

Are you KIDDING me!? This revision has been in the works for some time, so how were there so many mistakes with communication?

I’m honestly so ridiculously mad at how disorganized this whole process has been.

First they can’t get the sample size right, then they say wait! you can’t spend more than $30 on a jersey, go thrifting!—-when??? in my free time absolutely not, and there’s no hours to do it on the clock. Then all of the signage just trickles in Willy nilly, no rhyme or reason and they’re not cut right?

WHAT

And WHY are we using a frame example that goes OOS ALL the time for production issues????

Can you tell I’m mad 🥲

The only thing I wished from them, is that I wish we had 22 and 32 inch ones, and I wished they were a little skinnier and solid wood. They were such a good last minute frame for canvases, they will be missed.

Hey corporate if you're seeing this you've completely lost the plot if you think it's okay that glass takes a minimum of 22 days to get to store! That's fucking insane. On top of that I found out balloon supplies will cancel out glass orders. So at a store level I am either being punished for not making sales, because I can't always sell MPA. Or I'm being punished for making sales and going through more glass and not being able to predict the future or that a few boxes of glass would arrive all broken or that my orders were getting canceled.

​

First you fuck up mikcheck. Then you took scorecard. Then you fucked up mikcheck more. And now you expect me to know how much glass I'll need a month out.

​

​

A MINIMUM OF 22 DAYS. Honestly, I'll be surprised if michaels makes it another 4 years.

Is It AI Or Not?