ReFrame Bloomington: Eco-Friendly Framing

Made in America

ReFrame believes that framing can be done sustainably, with local products and locally-grown labor. When you frame a project with ReFrame, you are making an investment in the community, in sustainable business practices, and in good, old-fashioned American craftsmanship.

The natural resources and talent of Bloomington, Monroe County, and Southern Indiana are second-to-none. Help make Bloomington the go-to destination in the midwest for fine arts craftsmanship by patronizing local arts and local arts businesses.

Sustainable Business Practices

The craftsmanship at ReFrame emphasizes best practices that get the most out of the materials used. ReFrame's entire business puts out less waste than the average American household.
ReFrame recycles everything. Scrap from projects is cut down to make smaller mats and frames. Once the scrap is small enough, it is carefully sorted and recycled.
ReFrame uses non-toxic finishes and sealers such as danish oil and products from The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company. By focusing on natural products with low carbon footprints, the products ReFrame manufactures help protect the fragile environment.
ReFrame works in an efficient workspace. The downtown showroom is about 850 square feet, meaning fewer lights, less power, and an overall smaller carbon footprint than our big-box competitors.
ReFrame believes supporting the local economy. As often as possible, ReFrame deals with local businesses for products, supplies, and services. It means less travel and a smaller carbon footprint. It also means that ReFrame directly supports the Bloomington and Monroe County economies, instead of letting precious local dollars disappear into the globalized manufacturing system.
ReFrame employs American workers and American craftsmanship. This country was founded on hard work and quality. ReFrame believes these values are more important today than ever before. That's why ReFrame deals exclusively with local craftspeople, designers, and employees to staff the storefront and manufacturing lines.

Founded on Green Products, Green Practices

Karol Stewart started ReFrame in 2008 after seeing how many truly wasteful practices occurred in the framing industry. Most frames you buy when you shop at one of these chains come from manufacturers located in Asia, where they employ cheap labor to mass produce low-quality frame mouldings. The mouldings then have to be shipped halfway around the world to a distribution company, where they are repackaged, recut, and shipped to the individual stores. A signifcant portion of these frames are irreperably damaged in the shipping process, suffering warping, cracking, and deformation. These frames become pure waste since they can't be used in fine framing projects. Each frame that ReFrame manufactures has less than 20 shipping miles under it, rather than the thousands that most vendor frames have.

With ReFrame's products, you're guaranteed to be getting the greenest, most ecologically-sound frame that you can possibly get for your project. By stocking vendor mouldings that come from certified sustainable forests and that are made in America, ReFrame makes sure that the money you invest in your framing stays right here in this country. From the selection of eco-friendly vendor frames to the line of locally-sourced hardwood BloomingFrames, the mouldings stocked at ReFrame are carefully selected to have the least impact on the natural environment that's possible.

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