{"id":231,"date":"2013-11-19T13:47:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T18:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thoughtsredacted.wordpress.com\/?p=231"},"modified":"2015-08-28T16:52:44","modified_gmt":"2015-08-28T16:52:44","slug":"shadow-box","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/?p=231","title":{"rendered":"The Shadow Box"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it’s done! And I think this thing is really cool! I don’t have that feeling all the time about my art projects, so this is nice.<\/p>\n

We left off with a couple of layers of paint<\/a> on the box and picture frame that I’d picked out to house my Dia de los Muertos miniatures from California.<\/p>\n

\"20131107_234559\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In that last picture I posted, you can just see one of the embellishments I bought from Etsy to see if it would work. It’s a cool paint-your-own skull with wings.<\/p>\n

\"zoom\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once it arrived, it occurred to me that it would look really good if painted by a miniature master. Fortunately, I happen to be married to one of those. So I handed it over and he got out his teeny-tiny brushes and got started.<\/p>\n

\"20131116_131718\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20131117_233309\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While he was working on that, I put several more layers of the metalic gold paint on the picture frame, and then a couple of layers of gold glitter paint.<\/p>\n

\"20131109_001530\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I lined the back only of the box with a sheet of glitter-covered foam from the dollar store. Then I started attaching some confetti spangles to the inside of the box, and to one of the smaller box lids, which I planned to use as a stage\/step area to raise the figures up a little.<\/p>\n

\"20131109_033015\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But then I had a brainwave. I remembered a random tin heart I’d received as a freebie when I bought some fabulous earrings from a friend-of-a-friend, Artista Muerta (who has an Etsy shop<\/a> if you’re interested!). I didn’t have any real plans for the tin heart but it was perfect<\/em> for this project. So in it went, and I spangled the whole floor instead of the step. I was a little worried that the Mod Podge would flatten or dull the sparkly spangles, but it didn’t.<\/p>\n

\"20131116_131655\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The next step was to shimmy the box into the picture frame and stick them together so the box edge didn’t gap away from the frame. I used Loctite paste for this, because I have coordination problems that lead to unfortunate situations with liquid SuperGlue. If I had a nickel for every time I glued my fingers together… One time a few years ago I tried something rated for metal-on-metal adhesion and I was worried I was going to have to go to the hospital for a skin graft if I ever wanted to use my thumb in its opposable capacity again. No joke. So I learn these things about myself, and I work around them. As I said: adhesive paste. Also painter’s tape, so I didn’t have to stand there like an idiot for an hour.<\/p>\n

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I gave Husband’s precious skull 24 full hours to dry (again, because I learn lessons, including the one when my stencils ran on the Little Free Library<\/a>!) and then I gave it a serious bath in clear spray-on sealant. If I may digress for a minute, here is a picture of the pizza box after the sealant dried. I am in love with the way this looks and I feel another art project coming on!<\/p>\n

\"20131119_092705\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once the sealant was dry, I attached the winged skull and ten jumbo-sized aluminum roses (also inspired by Artista Muerta’s jewelry and similar stuff I saw in LA), also using Loctite paste. It’s only been a day but so far that stuff seems pretty serious, as adhesives go. AND I have ten independently usable fingers today! I call that a win.<\/p>\n

\"20131119_000919\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So here it is, in all its glory:<\/p>\n

\"20131119_000803\"<\/a> \"20131119_000753\"<\/a> \"20131119_000747\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Well, it’s done! And I think this thing is really cool! I don’t have that feeling all the time about my art projects, so this is nice. We left off with a couple of layers of paint on the box … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,16],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crafts","tag-shadow-box"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/20131109_001530.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6y0gZ-3J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtsredacted.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}