A SHADOW BOX

It has been some time since I've shared a little project with you, so this is a special day! Mostly, I've been painting trim, baseboards, and doors in our house bright white, but here's an idea that grabbed hold of me after watching the movie Miss Potter. Behold! A shadow box.....

About a month or so back I had found a shadow box at a garage sale for $2. (insert choirs singing here) It was a bit dusty, but that's an easy fix. I covered the back in leftover burlap. I used one large piece to cover the entire backing and then three strips across to give it some visual interest. I didn't need to glue it or pin it, because it fit nice and snug when I pressed the backing back into the box. After watching Miss Potter, I was inspired by a quote I heard, so I looked it up to make sure it was an actual Beatrix Potter quote which it was. The quote: "There is something delicious about writing the first few words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you." It seemed rather appropriate for where Mr. N. and I are in our lives right now and since we do love Beatrix Potter all systems were a go. 

I typed up the quote in a fancy font and printed it out on normal, white, copy paper. I cut out the quote leaving extra space around it, and then carefully burned the edges of the paper over a candle, allowing the edges to keep an organic shape. I only pinned it to the top, since I was afraid the hot glue would leave grease marks on the paper. I then used a little bird's nest party favor that we received at my brother-in-law's wedding. The eggs in it are Jordan almonds coated to look like Robin's eggs, so I sprayed a coat of polyurethane over them (we all know they last forever anyways, but a little extra coverage isn't a bad idea) and then hot glued them into the nest. I found two charcoal pencils from my days at art school and hot glued them at the bottom.


It's simple, but whimsical, and is now hanging proudly in our bathroom. =] Sometimes, less is more, and it's always fun to see what can be done with things you already have on hand.

Let's Get Creative!

A very happy Wednesday morning to you all! Today feels like a much brighter day than yesterday was for me, and I feel a renewed sense of determination to tackle a few larger projects around the house. My mom and I were talking yesterday about our great need to be creative and how important being creative truly is, especially if God put that desire in you in the first place. So, I thought I'd show you a little project I just finished and a new one I'm going to be working on.

My Mr. N. is an Eagle Scout. That was one of the things that impressed me right off the bat about him and earned him MAJOR bonus points with my Grandparents, especially. =] He had quite a few pieces of memorabilia from those days placed in a box, but I really wanted to see them out and about considering how much work each precious patch represents. I looked into buying a large shadow box, but those are EXPENSIVE so I looked around to see what I had on hand. I started with an ordinary collage picture frame:

I removed the picture insert portion, but saved the cardboard backing. I then wrapped the cardboard backing with burlap (two layers worth, since you can see through it) that I'd purchased at JoAnn's Fabric (with a coupon!), cutting the burlap to be about an inch and a half or so around the edges. You'll just need to make sure you have enough to glue to the cardboard. Our cat, Pippin, was helping, as you can see.

Then I hot glued the burlap to the cardboard. The burlap is pretty thick, so I had to press down to make sure it was all sticking properly.

After hot gluing, it looked like this:

I then set out all of the memorabilia Mr. N. wanted to include, leaving room for any additional pieces we will need to get from his parents later on. It was a perfect time to let me move things around to fit properly before gluing.

Now, what I didn't take a picture of was that I used safety pins to pin both the sash and the scarf to the burlap. I didn't want to hot glue those particular items, so I was careful to get everything in line first and then pin it. I also pinned the corners of the scarf to the back where the burlap was glued. I hot glued each patch to the burlap. As for the pin at the top, I just pushed the pin straight into the cardboard, which was enough to keep it steady.

Fitting it into the frame was tricky, since it was so thick. However, after a bit of time, I was able to get it in there snug as a bug and still press the tiny metal brackets on the frame down around the cardboard piece to secure it in place. Here is the finished product:

 
Spiffy, no? The back doesn't look pretty, but we know what the Nester says, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful", and it's not about the back, it's about the front, right? =] 

For another project I did that was similar, I used a flour sack dish towel for the fabric. There are definitely lots of inexpensive options out there.

The next project I'm going to start working on has to do with this little beauty. Behold!

Front

Back

We found this crate on the side of the road. Shocker, I know. Even though it's a tad beat up, it's going to look pretty epic once I'm finished with it (or so I tell myself along with playing the song "Eye of the Tiger" in my head). haha.

Hope you're finding ways to be creative this week, too! I'd love to see/hear about some of your projects! Happy creating!