Hello friends!
Happy to finally be sharing September’s exciting project here 😀
(heads-up, long post ahead)
It started when my best friend told me about her decision to move back to her home country. As bittersweet as it was, I wanted to be able to give her a special farewell gift upon our parting. Many ideas came to my mind on how to make it a special one but I was not super excited about doing any of them, until I saw a picture of a shadow box on my Pinterest feed and thought: “that looks lovely!”
It was a perfect idea for the gift and I was able to imagine filling a shadow box with some of the special memories that we shared together. What a great idea that was! It was confirmed, two shadow boxes will be made; one for my friend and one for myself.
I watched a couple of videos on Youtube on how to create a shadowbox from scratch and then suddenly, the idea felt challenging and something I was not sure if I will be able to pull off well. I had doubts about it and went back and forth on it until I decided to believe that “I can”.
After doing some more research online, I found the diagram below as an assembly reference. It looked clear and straightforward:
I then saw this image online of a shadowbox that looked neat and decided to use it as a design reference for the box and frame:
—– PHASE 1: Woodwork –—
Starting the project, I asked myself: what is it that makes this box a challenge to create? Surprisingly, the answer was: the glass that goes on the front side of the box. That is because I was not sure where to get it from until I realised that it does not have to be glass and acrylic can do the job. Then I went searching online for acrylic sheets and found a pair of perfectly sized sheets and placed an order for them.
The second challenging question that arose was: how will the acrylic sheets be held? From the tutorials I watched online, I found a way and decided to add to the diagram above an extra layer and that is a frame that goes on the front of the box and is slightly bigger than the box. In that way, the acrylic sheets will be held by the frame from falling through and give the box a nice finish.
Moving on to the making of the box, I used the measurements of the acrylic sheets to come up with the measurements of the box and then went to the store to buy and cut the pieces of wood. At the store, I found long wooden pieces of different sizes and shapes that are used to create edges or frames from (not sure what they are called). I chose one that perfectly fit the wooden pieces I had.
I got back home that day and sanded the edges of the pieces as they were rough. I think the cutting machine’s blade at the store was dull. Once done with sanding, I went on drilling two scrap pieces together as practice.
I was impressed by the drill and was ready to move on to drilling together box number 1. While doing that, I accidentally broke the drill’s head inside the wood!! I was applying too much pressure and at this point, my 14 year old nephew who was with me at the time and having taken some woodworking classes at school, advised my to be gentle with the drill. In addition, he taught me that I do not need to drill deep holes in the wood. Since I have chosen nails that can be screwed with a screw driver, I can simply drill a few millimetres into the wood then use the screw driver to insert the nails. His advice was gold! It shall stay with me for the rest of my life.
Box number 1 was ready. Moving on to box number 2, I was too excited that I fixed the wrong sides together XD
Got that fixed and the boxes were ready for the next phase; cutting the frames:
Before moving on, there were some gaps in box number 1. The wood I bought was slightly bent from sitting on the shelf of the store. I noticed the bending once the wood was cut. To fix the gaps, one of the tutorials I watched covered this point where the lady advised to use some saw dust mixed with wood glue to fill the gaps and then sanding it once dry. I tried it and it fixed the issue:
At this point, I decided that the neater box will be my friend’s which was box number 2. From here, box number 1 became that lab rat.
The acrylic sheets made an appearance and I was so curious to see how well were the measurements of the boxes. Eagerly, I unpacked them and tried them on the boxes and…
…they were a perfect fit for box number 1. Box number 2 was a wee bit smaller but not a major issue, I was able to gently push the sheet down.
Moving on to the frames…
This was my first time making a frame and I started by drawing a 45° angle on a squared sheet of paper to use as a guide for cutting the frame pieces.
After marking the pieces, I got a handsaw we had at home and started cutting. As far as I remember, I have not used a handsaw like the one before. I thought it would be a piece of cake but I was mistaken. The cutting part was alright, but cutting a perfect 45° to have a perfect 90° angle for the corners was so challenging. I wished at this point I had a mitre box and was thinking whether I should invest in one or not. I knew it would make my life way easier but I decided not to, maybe some time in the future.
I continued cutting the rest of the pieces with the handsaw and this part of the project was a very interesting one. There was a lot of trial and error and figuring things out as I go.
It took a long time to get the frames ready because non of the corners fit together nicely from the first try expect for one. After gluing the frames on the boxes, I had gaps in all corners and I was slightly okay with that.
It was time to try the acrylic sheets and see if the frames will do the job.
It was a success.
I worked my way around the gaps by filling them with some PVA glue mixed with Chinchilla dust powder to give it some texture. The most random medium to use ever. I am not sure why I did not use wood glue and saw dust instead…?
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The woodworking part of the project was done. I was very happy with the project at this point and extra happy that everything so far was working out very well. The boxes looked awesome and were ready for the next step: painting.
For the paint, I went for white paint with eggshell finish. I liked how the sample at the store felt like but when I applied two layers on the boxes, it was far from the store sample. It was glossy and you can see where the paint was not evenly applied. My mum recommended that I sand down the paint and I took her advice that worked great. The gloss and the uneven paint texture were gone. It looked and felt more like the eggshell finish sample I felt at the store.
Moving on, it was time to glue the acrylic sheets to the boxes. I used gloves to keep the sheets clean from fingerprints and then applied pressure to the sheets once they were glued.
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I kept the pressure applied for around an hour and then checked on it. The sheets were stuck to the frames and the boxes started to look like real shadow boxes 😀
—– PHASE 2: Design –—
The boxes were ready to be filled on the inside. Before moving on to designing the layers, I took measurements of the boxes from the inside. Using squared paper eased the process and the measurements of the boxes differed which meant that the final design for the inside will be done in two sizes.
At this stage of the project, I was very blank and did not know how to start designing the inside. What can I fill the box with? How to layer elements in a fun or creative way? How to make sure the layers look nice together? Many questions arose and I was looking at different examples online and on Pinterest. I saved a few mood images that inspired:
All of those examples were beautiful. I knew that what I wanted for our boxes was going to be customised to suit our friendship. From there, I listed down some of the memories and places that brought us together:
- University
- Internship & first workplace together
- San Francisco
- Washigton DC
- Hamilton Broadway show
- Sunflower
Each one of the aforementioned will be a layer. Then I moved on to finding an element for each item:
- University’s logo (crescent like shape)
- Workplace brand symbols (faces)
- Golden Gate Bridge
- The White House
- Hamilton emblem
- Sunflower
Once I found elements that I saw can work together, I traced them on Illustrator and started arranging them to come up with a final design:
The final design on computer:
Before I jumped into printing and cutting, I wanted to try the x-acto knife that I bought especially for this project as I am not familiar with the tool and have not used this size before. I printed a test print and started cutting…
I was extremely impressed by the fine details that you can cut using this knife! It was entertaining and magical! At first I had doubts about how small some details on the layers are but when I tried the knife, I knew that nothing was impossible to cut.
Then I moved on preparing the layers. I bought a specific type of paper for this project, a paper that was not too stiff, not too soft, easy to cut, can stand alone and the colour was not too cool nor too warm.
For cutting purposes, I decided to print each layer’s design in black and on very low opacity as well as reflect the design. Which meant that the front side of the layer will be white but the back will have the print on it. I printed some test prints of different opacities to see which one would be the clearest for cutting:
All of the test prints were too light and not clear. I ended up printing the layers in 20% transparency because it made cutting visible and easy. Time to go cutting…
First layer was cut and my excitement level at this point was off the scale!
Cutting the layers was so much fun. I did not expect that and I now understand better the joy behind paper art.
Every time I finished a layer, I placed it on the other ones to see the design come together which looked like this:
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I loved it!
It looked like a beautiful card like that. The layering is lovely.
Then I moved on to creating the foam-board edges and started sticking the layers on top of each other:
It was coming together beautifully! I was very thankful, excited and could not believe it. It was time to find a material to close the box with from the back which meant one last visit to the hardware store. The boxes went on a field-trip with me:
I chose to take them with me to make sure the pieces that close the back fit perfectly. I got the material I wanted and went back home to wrap up the project. It was time to put the paper work inside the box:
I tried two options. On the left, I kept some space between the layers and the acrylic sheet. On the right, the layers were flushed on the acrylic sheet. I liked the one on the right and went with it.
Then it was time to test the lights. I got two different lengths of LED lights; one 3m long and one 5m long. It meant that one will go in my friend’s box and one will go in mine. After some testing and taking the opinion of my family, I chose to go with the brighter one, 5m, for my friend and keep the dimmed one, 3m, for my box.
To fix the lights, I used a glue gun to stick them to the back cover and drilled a hole for the wire to go through as well as some ventilation holes.
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Revealing box number 1 that was ready at this point…
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Beyond happy with how it turned out *.*
Then I moved on to putting together the layers for box number 2. I made the necessary adjustments to the design to fit the box and then went on cutting away…
When sticking the layers together, I gave the layers more breathing space in between. The layers on the lab rat box looked good but were a bit too close to each other in my opinion.
It looked beautiful and shall fill more space in the box.
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Since the lights for box number 2 were longer and brighter, I stuck them on the bottom of the box, I thought maybe this will have an effect on how the light disperses…(it didn’t).
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As a finishing touch, I added some soft padding for the base so the box sits softly and is stable on the surface.
And for the final reveal…
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Overview:
What a wonderful project this was. I was on a high for the whole of September. Every step of the project was fun (except for the frame cutting part) and was a new experience. It was the first time that I build and put together an artwork like this one as well as my first time doing detailed paper cutting.
I learned a lot from this project. It was hands-on from A to Z and so it required to think in practical terms. It was a good exercise in problem solving and planning and execution.
The two major lessons I learned from this project were to believe in myself and to trust the process. In every step of the project, I was continuously reminded to trust the process and to believe that I can achieve my goal. It was a very positive project and one of my favourites from Project_S!
I managed to finish it by the end of September but it took me forever to sit and write the blog post down but here it is 😀 My friend loved the gift and was taken by surprise when she saw it! I am so happy that she loved it and the fact that she’ll have one in her home studio and I have one in ours makes this piece a special one.
Currently cooking October’s project…
Until next time friends,
-S
Vibes of Creativity 