Shadow Box Art

post by Diana

This is the last post I'll make about fake flowers. For a while, at least. Nature's finally starting to make her own blossoms, so I don't have to supplement my life with the artificial stuff.

With spring here at last, I've been working on sprucing up my apartment. Currently, my bedroom is an overwhelming disaster area of spring cleaning in repose (read:I pulled everything from my closet to tidy it and left it all on the floor...), so I turned to switching up my bathroom decor for a less daunting task.

I made all three of these cute flower frames in about half an hour. And it only took me that long because I had to dig through my piles of spring cleaning in order to find the right flowers.

But first, let me backtrack to show you what art I'm replacing. A few years ago, my move into my current apartment happened to coincide with severely increased levels in my Pinterest usage. During that time, it seemed like everyone was making really amazing melted crayon art and I wanted to give it a go. Conveniently, I had everything I needed on hand: canvas, crayons, and a blow dryer.

Melted crayons: cooler when everyone else does it.

My finished product left plenty to be desired, but I tacked them up anyway. I really hate the color of my bathroom, so the more things covering the walls, the better. That said, it didn't take long for me to decide to paint over my sub par creations.

Perhaps in opposition to the extreme kiddie factor of melted crayons, I decided to go for a lovely, grown-up metallic theme in my bathroom. I had already spray-painted a lot of things gold and silver that summer, so I just added my crayon art to the list. I spray-painted some fake leaves I had leftover from plucking flowers for headbands and used my glue gun to hot glue them in whimsical blustery-leaf positions.

I'm still a fan of the textured effect the wax created underneath the spray paint and the finished result is decidedly more grown up than crayon art, but now the gold and silver feel a little too drab in my overwhelmingly warm-toned bathroom. (And one of the canvases has started to buckle from condensation.)

So I got adventurous and bought shadow boxes. These frames were on sale at Michael's and were three for $10ish. The flowers I used were leftover from my other projects, but likely cost less than $10 total.

The top one's not quite full enough.

First, I opened the backs of the shadow boxes and filled them full of the flattest flowers I could find. The faux hydrangea blossoms I used for two of the frames worked especially well. I had to stuff the shadow boxes full because I didn't want to use any glue or stabilizer, but I also didn't want my flowers to shift around. I really had to pack the flowers in there. Even when I thought I'd finished, I could still see cardboard backing through at edges of the frame.

To combat the visible cardboard, I decided to overlap fake leaves with the box frame edge. I placed the back over them and into the frame and slid the hinges into their slots without a problem. When I hang my boxes, I'll just cut off the excess.

Because I didn't use glue or anything else permanent, I can re-purpose the flowers and shadow boxes when I get bored of them. Because, as history indicates, that's probably going to happen.

The trio all together.

I'm so pleased with how this simple project turned out. I can't wait to hang them!

Happy making!