Mother’s Day Shadow Box

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With Mother’s Day just a few days away, I thought I’d share a springtime home decor piece that doubles as a thoughtful handmade gift for any of the special moms in your life.  I bought this shadow box at a local craft store and started out by refinishing it in  antique white with some acrylic paint.

  1. Use your Silhouette to cut your vinyl stencil for glass etching.
  2. Start by drawing a rectangle the same size as your glass panel (you can make it smaller to save material, but I cover the whole piece to make sure I don’t etch another part of the glass accidentally).
  3. Resize the sentiment to fit within the rectangle, select both shapes, and click “Center” in the Align Window.

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  1. After cutting your stencil, carefully weed the design and transfer to your glass using thescraper tool.
  2. Add etching cream.

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  1. Next, cut your flowers out of assorted cardstock.
  2. If you have the Designer Edition of Studio, you can use the Nesting tool to save materials while cutting many designs at once.  In this case, I nested four copies of my flower design within a piece of 8.5 x 11 cardstock and could save the leftover cardstock for another project.

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  1. Ink the edges of your flowers for a more realistic look.  Here I used a small, red pigment ink pad.
  2. Shape each layer of petals as desired.  I like to curl the edges of the petals under and then rub the center with a stylus (or round end of a pen) on a foam mat to make them cup upward.
  3. Adhere the layers with liquid glue or mini glue dots.

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  1. Adhere cardstock (or in this case burlap) to the back of your shadow box.
  2. Enclose flowers loosely in box to make a “shaker frame” like this one or adhere them to the back for a slightly different look.

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Happy Mother’s Day!

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