Melissa Frances: Secret Garden Shadowbox by Kathy

Hi crafty friends! Kathy here to share my little garden shadowbox. With summer right around the corner, I wanted to create a project with beautiful southern gardens in mind. I love the patinas that I see in the southern gardens in Charleston, SC and I think I captured that charm by pairing Melissa Frances Metal Flea Market Find Appliques and wood embellishments with Art Anthology mediums.

Secret Garden

Supplies

8" x 8" Wood Panel

Flea Market Finds Imperial Metal Applique

Wood Veneer Embellishments

Pink Delicate Blooms

Art Anthology Stone Effects in Sandstone, Bone and Brick

Art Anthology Cotton Velvet

Art Anthology Colorations Sprays in:

Distress Picket Fence Crackle Paint

Brick Stencil

Moss and Flowers

Tutorial

I started with the back of an 8" x 8" wood panel to create the shadowbox effect. For the brick, mix Art Anthology Stone Effects in Bone and Sandstone with a touch of Brick and apply through the brick stencil inside the wood frame. Set aside to dry.

Add a coat of Art Anthology Cotton Velvet to the wood fence and birdhouse embellishments

and let dry.

Add Distress Picket Fence Crackle Paint to both and let dry. Apply thick coat for larger cracks or thin coat for smaller cracks.

For the Imperial Metal Appliques, add a coat of gesso and let dry. Apply the Crackle Paint randomly on the Appliques and let dry.

To bring out the cracks, spray Art Anthology Sandcastle Colorations Spray onto the fence. Let the Spray sit for a few minutes on the surface so that it seeps into the cracks. Wipe off the excess spray.

For the Appliques, spray liberally with French Toast Colorations Spray, which is a bit darker than Sandcastle. I let the spray sit on the surface overnight because I wanted a heavily distressed look.

The bird embellishment will make several appearances before I finally settle on what I want him to look like. One advantage to using wood embellishments over chipboard is that they don't get soggy when repeatedly applying layers of wet media.

I added Raider Colorations Spray to the Appliques because they needed more contrast against the frame. Everything was looking too similar in color.

I love how they ended up looking like weathered iron, which is exacting what I wanted. I sanded some of the raised areas lightly to reveal a bit of the silver underneath.

Using a small paint brush, apply Silk Tie Colorations Spray and Marlin to the birdhouse embellishment. Wipe the excess spray away with a baby wipe.

Apply Grass Colorations Spray to the flourishes. This ends up being very subtle.

For the large bird, I finally decided to use Art Anthology Cotton Velvet, which has a matte finish. I only had a small amount left and it was very gooey, which made the perfect texture.

I added a bit of Waimea Bay and Sandcastle Colorations Spray to the bird and let it dry. A little black dot for the eye and he was done.

Back to the wood panel; To create a whitewashed look, I painted the frame and sides with a mixture of gesso and water and wiped it away. I did this several times until I got the right shade.

I decided to add brick to three sides of the frame. So I mixed up the Stone Effects again applied it through the brick stencil and let everything dry. Speed up this process by using a heat tool.

Time to assemble everything. The appliques have holes so I used tacks to adhere them as shown.

I glued the birdhouse to the center of the panel.

I gathered flowers and sprayed them with Salmon, Wild Orchid and Barbie Colorations Spray and used a heat tool to dry them. A bit of Stickles and some gold paint on the edges finishes them off.

Moss seemed like the perfect backdrop for the flowers. I glued it all down and nailed the fence to the front. An orange flower was the perfect embellishment for the top of the frame.