Shadow boxes

Photography and display areas for my finished craft projects were a big priority when I redecorated my craft room earlier this year, and shadow boxes were one of the ways I wanted to achieve this.

First I gathered lots of inspiration by looking at images of shadow boxes, and I created a Pinterest board of ideas.

I then looked at what I already had, and decided to re-use some old Ikea box frames. The first thing I had to do was to remove the glass from these – this was easy enough on the two large frames, as it just slid out, but on the smaller one I wrapped it in a plastic bag and hit it with a hammer, then carefully disposed of the glass pieces. On the two large boxes I used a jigsaw to cut around and remove the lip around three sides that had held the glass, but I left it in place on the smaller one as it went all the way round.

 

I gave the frames a coat of white gloss paint to cover the existing paint/wood, and then I gave a coat of white emulsion for a matt effect. For the back of the smaller box, which is removable, I painted it with blackboard paint.

 

I then decided on the layout of the boxes on the wall, and I glued them together in this configuration (making sure that all the fixings on the back were the right way up) to make it easier to mount them all without any gaps. I just used a spot of hot glue for this. I took a piece of paper to mark where all the fixings were, then used this to mark on the wall. I drilled the wall and put in rawl plugs, then put in screws, leaving them protruding slightly for the fixings to grip onto.

The paper in the back of the two large boxes is removable, held in with a touch of repositionable glue. As I was looking for patterned paper to put in them, I found a large print I’d ordered of one of my photos from Japan, which I’d used a vintage filter on, and it was almost the perfect size! So I used this and a patterned paper of vintage rulers – I thought they went well with the blackboard colour in the small box.

Now I have a great area for displaying and photographing some of my small craft items and vintage items, and I have plans for some larger shadow boxes on another wall!