Shadow boxes

Is shadow box one word or two? I don't know, anyhow, here is my finished project. It feels like it took forever but it is finally up and finished. At least until baby gets here and we get his outfit up. But it was quite the job getting these together. I had to wait till we painted before I could really do anything too.

First, I had to figure out how to get Ava's long dress into a shadowbox. I didn't want a ginormous shadowbox so I decided to kind of swirl it off to the side. It's still bigger then the boys boxes, but that's ok. You can still all the lace and beads that my mother in law sewed on it. It really is a beautiful dress.

Then I had to buy some preservation glass so the outfits won't yellow over time. Daniel thought this was overkill since all glass in houses has UV protection. But, I really don't want these to yellow. So I had them all cut at our craft store here. The boys frames are 16 x 20 so I had the glass cut to that size. But when I tried to put the glass in, it was too big. Apparently these frames were a little off and were in fact 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 . So I had to take them back and get them cut again.

Then to get the glass out of Ava's, I had to pry out this wood strip that held the glass in place with tiny staples. I finally got it out and the glass in, then we tried to staple the wood back in, but it didn't work. So I had to figure out some way to hold the glass in that was acid free and wouldn't affect the dress. So finally the only thing I could think of was to use this paste I have called yes paste that's acid free and can be used on any surface. So I used that and it worked just fine, I can just see the residue on some of the glass around the edges and it kind of bugs me. But, Daniel says it's just me and no one will notice. So I wiped off what I could and hung her up. Luckily, the boys frames had the wood strip too, but they had screws! Why couldn't they put screws in Ava's too!? It's the same brand, just a different size! Anyhow, it was much easier to put theirs together.

Then my mother in law has a vinyl cutter and cut this vinyl for me. I love it! It's exactly what I had envisioned. Thanks to my husband and mother in law for helping me get everything together! It was a bit of work, but I love the finished result.

Here's a little closer look then the first picture.