Several years ago I came across this blog post on Bird Nest on the Ground and I loved the shadow box collages she had photographed at her friend's home. The oval one especially caught my eye and I pinned the photo for a future craft project.
I tend to collect little bits and bobs and I knew I could recreate the look fairly easily. I thought the trickier part would be finding an oval convex (or bubble glass) frame but I actually found two of them when I was doing a project for Rick for his birthday. He inherited all his dad's WW2 medals and I wanted a way to display them that would honor him and also fit in with our decor. I'm not a big fan of the regular shadow box offerings out there. I wanted something with a vintage look to it.
I used one for the medals and saved the other for this project.
The first thing I did was remove the backing and lay out my assorted objects and ephemera to get a feel for placement. The backing was too flimsy and rather warped so it wasn't usable as a backing for the collage. I had some foam board and used the backing as a template. I sprayed it with a strong, permanent bond adhesive and covered it in a dark maroon velvet scrap I had left over from the previous collage project.
I then laid out all the collage items onto the velvet without gluing them down. I wanted to take a picture first because I think you can get a better idea of how something looks when you look at a photo of it, rather than looking at the actual thing. If that makes sense. I did rearrange some of the larger pieces to get a better balance of color (as you can see in the finished project photo) and added some additional embellishments to fill in some gaps. I tend to collect hearts, it would seem.
Most of the pieces were just things I have picked up over the years but I wanted them to tell a story. I picture the woman in the photograph saving trinkets she had received from her husband over the course of their marriage. There is a picture of their sweet little baby and a few of her toys. The overall effect is a lovely valentine to their life together.
The four leaf clover was actually in a card Rick and I received when we got married. I thought it was a sweet thing to include (both in the card and in the collage). The mesh coin purse belonged to Rick's grandmother.
When I first started out I wondered how I was going to successfully fasten different materials to the velvet. I did a google search ("sticking things to velvet" haha…) and found a few discussion boards and one of them mentioned Beacon 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue. I'm telling you this stuff is a miracle. And I know my glues! Stop reading this blog and hop on over to Amazon or drive yourself to Michaels and get some. If you do any kind of crafting you will welcome this into your supplies. It is clear, dries fast, and sticks anything to anything. Some of the things I wanted to include in the collage are heavy yet the glue holds perfectly. Even that mesh coin purse. It doesn't do anything weird to the paper items (no warping or seepage) and it is acid free so hopefully that four-leaf clover won't fall apart over time.
I removed the glass to take pictures because I couldn't get a good one because of the glare. This project was much easier than I thought and as a bonus I don't feel guilty for hoarding saving all those little trinkets and bit of ephemera.
