I had saved some of the flowers from the funeral. They were just too beautiful. As beautiful as the loved one that was lost. Years had past and I knew that I wanted to do something with the flowers.
I found a good deal on some shadow boxes at Michaels. After a long debating period, I decided that I wan't the background to have the lyrics to the song that was played at the funeral. A few printing mistakes and typos later, I was able to get it close to what I was envisioning.
I tested several different ways to "age" the paper including: coffee, coffee grounds, tea bags, acrylic paint, etc. The final one that I decided on was just soaked in some brewed coffee and a couple hits of a wet tea bag. It turned out great as you were still able to see and read the words when you were up close, but also gave it that aged feeling to go along with the dried flowers.
I knew that I would have to have some type of bow to hold the flowers together, well at least hide the wire that was holding them together. Lets just say I made a HUGE mess. Dried flowers are not the easiest to work with. Petals and leaves were falling all over the place, but nothing that couldn't be cleaned up.
I attached the aged paper to the back of the shadowbox with pins. I then placed the flowers onto the paper how I desired them to be set in the frame. Then I put the flowers front facing down on the glass inside of the shadow box. Next I took the aged paper backing and laid it on top of it. now my flowers were a little too "bulky" for the depth of the shadowbox. I gave it a good quick push to sort of crush them all in there to make it fit. It resulted in a couple of petals and leaves falling to the bottom of the shadow box, but I just went with it added more character.
What did you do to commemorate a lost loved one?
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