How to put a rectangular picture in a square frame

I've been decorating and found some great frames in the clearance section at Target.  They had "art" in them already, but they were simple classic frames and I knew I could rip out the ugly "art" and put my own  pieces in the frames.  I love looking for framed "art" that is cheap, but has a nice frame.  Often you can get frames much cheaper that way, than if you bought empty frames.

 I thought this would make a great addition to my art wall in the living room.  The problem is that the only frame I had that was close to be big enough was square.

I used one of my big square frames from the clearance section.  But how to put a rectangular picture in a square frame?  the first problem was the grey and cream border on the picture.  The central image was about 2 inches smaller than the opening in the matting.  If you stuck it in the frame as it was, the picture would run under the frame and look like junk.

My solution was to carefully trim off the grey and cream border from one edge.

 Then I measured the height and transfered that measurement to the width to get a square image to fit in my square frame.  I slid the strip off to my pencil mark and taped it down.

From the wall, in a frame, no one will ever know that this was originally a rectangular image.

I wouldn't recommend doing this with real art.  But this image was just the picture from an old calendar.  I saved it because it really looked like a watercolor and I knew once it was framed no one would look closely enough to tell that it was a calendar print instead of a real watercolor.

Clockwise from the top left, the art is a print from a calendar, a scrap of scrapbook paper from the dining room project, a hand tinted print I got in Rome when I was in college, a photo I took in Krakow, the print of a pen and ink sketch that I got at the National Gallery, an original oil painting that Hubby bought me for Christmas 2 years ago, and the reproduction of an old postcard from my college.  Originally I wanted to only put "real" art on the wall, but I'm tired of look at blank walls, so I put some fakes up and frankly most people will never look closely enough to tell real from reproduction.