How to Make a Shadow Box with Rolled Flowers
Here is a great craft that consists of a shadow box with rolled flowers. Shadow boxes make wonderful gifts. Filled with rolled flowers, shadow boxes lend themselves easily to a variety of gifts for a variety of occasions. These include weddings, babies, housewarmings, Mother’s Day and memorials. Shadow boxes are readily available in a number of places including Michaels, IKEA and even the dollar store from time to time. For a thorough, step-by-step tutorial on how to make rolled roses, check out my blog post here.
The number of flowers you need depends on the size of the roses, the layout you want to do, as well as the size of the shadow box. For my shadow box, I made roses using 8.5×11 cardstock as the 12×12 roses were too tall to fit in the shadow box. Smaller card stock will result in smaller roses. You may need to make a couple of test flowers to make sure they fit.
When arranging the roses, they can be as close together as you want. Just arrange them how you think they look good. I prefer a symmetrical layout, but really, anything goes. I’ve seen some shadow boxes where they were more abstract-looking. You don’t even need to fill up the entire shadow box. For this project, I used a shadow box from Ikea. They are reasonably priced and are available in black, as well as white. You can find them here.
How to Make a Shadow Box with Rolled Flowers
- Arrange the flowers the way you would like them. I’ve seen some systemically arranged like this and I’ve seen some more sparse. I’ve also seen some shadow boxes where it’s only partially covered. It’s whatever you want!
- Starting with the perimeter, glue down the roses. I use Aleene’s Tacky glue, but any type of craft glue will be fine.
- Optional: add a quote or a saying to the glass part. For this, I used my Cricut Explore Air 2. I wanted to put the saying on the inside of the glass, so when cutting it, mirror your image so that it is backwards. I used a permanent adhesive vinyl (I prefer Avery, but Oracle 651 or equivalent will do. Even removable will work as it will be on the inside and nothing will come in contact with it).
TIP: In order to make it straight, I use my quilting ruler to make sure it is lined up nice and even.
These shadow boxes make wonderful gifts. You can do any colour of flowers – or why not a mixture of colours? These would be perfect for Mother’s Day which is coming up, as well as the end of school – wouldn’t these make lovely teacher gifts as well?
