First Shadow Box

When Jared talks about his friends at school, he usually talks about boys. He likes to play with Isaac and Brandon and Coby. But at least one girl always makes it into his daily litany: Rachel. And it would appear that he is as dear to her as she is to him.

A few weeks ago, Jessica, Rachel's mom, told me that as they were discussing her upcoming birthday, she asked Rachel to name all the girls she'd like to invite. Rachel started listing and then broke into tears. "Rachel, what's wrong?" Jessica asked. Rachel, sobbing, said, "Can Jared be a girl, just for one day? I want to invite him too!"

I'm not sure whether I'll subject Jared to the indignity of wearing one of Lauren's preserved fancy dresses (although Lauren and I would dearly love to dress him up), but I definitely needed to make this girl a special present.

I had bought some shadow boxes a while ago at IKEA after reading one of my favorite blogger's posts about the shadowboxes she makes (here). And I've just been waiting for the right project. I know Rachel's two favorite things are doggies (her dog Gus makes me want a dog) and pickles. So, after dreaming of ideas all night, I sketched out this plan this morning.

Then, I measured my space and sketched the design onto watercolor paper and then began applying paint. The painting on the left is the background, and the one on the upper right will be cut out.

And then, since I just can't say no to sketching over the paint with my lovely Micron pens, I did a little bit of that, which helped add some of the details I missed with my paint brush. Cutting out the girl and her dog was somewhat frustrating, but when I switched to my new (and very sharp and shiny!) embroidery scissors, things improved significantly. I wonder if maybe I should get a craft knife for cutting like this...Hmm...

After I cut out the Picklish Dream, I added some very fine glitter around the edges to make it even more dreamlike.

Then, I added some dimension squares to the back of the girl and her doggy so they'd pop right out. The trailing thought bubbles were a last minute idea. I used a hole punch to cut out the circles, then bored two tiny holes in each one and threaded them on silver thread (does it make you think of the Pensieve in Harry Potter? me too!) and ran the thread from pickle to girl.

And a closer picture so you can read the text.

Hmm. Maybe I should invite myself to the party so I can watch as she opens it.

Now, on to my next project: bow ties, I think. Why not?