While I've been doing "writerly" stuff, I also was working on that shadow box I mentioned before. (* See last posts on a new story coming and the sunflower tiny house project. Click photos for full size.)
The "before" above, just a plain display box I found some time back at a yard sale or something. Nothing special, but I know I got it cheap and I must've seen some potential in it. There was blue felt on the back, which I knew had to come out.
The "After":
Much better! Sanded off that felt, then painted and papered the insides with scrapbook paper. I also put some lightweight spackle (wall covering compound) on some of the side inner walls and painted it.
I thought of it as a kind of "house," so you have the front door entrance, various rooms, a basement, an outside, and then the attic spaces. The spaces are actually not that big - the center door space is only 5 1/2" high and the bottom smaller spaces are about 3 1/2" high - so it's a good size to fit half-scale (1/24th) furnishings in.
I used scrapbook paper tile on the bottom here, "stuccoed" walls, and put some vines up with wisteria-type flowers. The flowers are wire with glue stuck into that shredded colored foam. I bought a bargain pack of half-scale doors at the last show, so I used one of those. I made two steps under the door from pieces of painted foam board. The pots are 1" scale, but I liked using bigger pots here and already had some geraniums made. I'll add a few furnishings in here as well.
The bottom floors have brick paper and flooring made from egg carton stones. The right side is an outside space so it has the "grass" between the stones.
For fun, I put a cute fireplace I had in this room, which I figured had a Halloween feel. The fireplace light actually flickers. I'll probably hang some spooky art in here temporarily.
For the top "attic" space, I cut pieces from a wood placemat I had. I thought this dial on one of the scrapbook papers made a cool background. I like that and might use it in a house later on, too. The other attic space has textured brick wallpaper (from
Starboc 2 on Etsy.)
Just a little preview, until I decorate these more. I was considering this as kind of a "holding" project for furniture and things until I use them somewhere else.
I still haven't really quite decided on what to work on next. I am considering the Raggedy Ann house since it's assembled and has electric tape in. And it's a smaller house, though it still takes as much time to do no matter the size! I have to decide on wallpapers (likely shades of red, yellow, and blue) and what colors to paint the outside (probably the same as the papers.) I did put some papers together, so at least I am thinking about it. ha!
Maybe I'll just start doing something so I get in the mood to work on it. I don't quite have any inspiration - yet! I'll let you know when I have some things to show on it.
Thanks again for visiting! Come back soon for more posts and other news!
