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DIY Vintage Window Shadow Box

Happy May Day! (a little late) Did you get any special flowers for May Day?

Several years ago, one of my daughter-in-laws found a beautiful way to preserve some very special flowers she received. She created a vintage window shadow box!

This daughter-in-law, Melissa, before she was my daughter-in-law, preserved many flowers, but this isn’t about the drying process, I think she just hung them upside down and they dried. This is showing the creative way she displayed these preserved flowers in a DIY vintage window shadow box.

These flowers have some pretty emotional memories associated with them.

Many of the flowers were given to her from my son when they were dating, and later engaged. A couple of those years were burdened with a long-distance relationship, (with a semester of her studying aboad). Melissa was finishing her under grad 3 states away from where Aaron was working on his doctorate degree.

During those college years, Melissa was having a lot of arm pain that kept getting worse and worse. She was diagnosed with a large bone tumor. The doctor prepared Melissa for the worse as all signs pointed to a malignant bone tumor. Those were scary days. She had surgery that removed a large section of her forearm bone, but miraculously, the tumor turned out to be benign.

The flowers given to her from that time are included in these special flowers.

Melissa’s creative way to display all these flowers was by building a shadow box using a vintage window.

She got the vintage window, that had been removed from a horse barn where she used to ride, for free. (I love re-purposing old windows!) They cut a piece of plywood to fit in the back and built a frame of 1 x 4’s around the sides to allow the gap between the window front and plywood back.

To dress up the plywood, they covered it with some of that heavy thick wallpaper that’s embossed to look like pressed tin. (I had it left over from some project.)

Melissa then made little bouquets from her preserved flowers and using hot melt glue, attached them onto the wallpapered plywood. She finished the bouquets with a raffia gently attached to each group of flowers.

By leaving the old original whitewash finish on the window lends the look to a casual farmhouse style.

Those handles are pretty cool! love them!!

They mounted hardware on the back of the vintage window shadow box so they can easily hang the vintage window shadow box on the wall.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please feel free to follow and share this blog with your friends, as well as on Facebook, Pinterest, Flipboard, Bloglovin, YouTube and Instagram! I appreciate you reading along.

Here are more vintage window repurposing projects I’ve written about:

Did you know that I am an interior (including some exterior) decorator? Here you can find more info: Frame and Frills I do e-decorating consultation, via online from my office to your home!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. Sally says

    Very beautiful and creative. I have an old window that I want to do something with and this gives me ideas. Thanks for posting.

    Reply

  7. Kathy says

    Oh, now that’s romantic and so very beautiful – I can imagine this being replicated over and over! I appreciate you sharing with Home and Garden Thursday,
    Kathy

    Reply

  10. Deanne says

    I love this idea, I just used a similar window in a project at my house, so if I decide to change it, I know what I can do with it instead!

    Reply

  15. Sharon Hines says

    How special! What a beautiful sentiment this window box holds. Thank you for sharing these flowers with us at Show & Tell.

    Sharon @ mrs. hines class

    Reply

  21. Melinda says

    What a beautiful story. And what a beautiful display. It is so much more lovely because it has meaning behind it.

    Reply

  24. JaneEllen Jones says

    Love what your son/dil did with that old window. Looks great. We had to leave a few of the old wood windows in KY when we left and it killed me. Now we’re back to crafting and repurposing things, sure wish we had more of those windows. We did get to bring 4 of them with us but they’ll go quickly.
    I have one in our room that has a shelf on bottom of window and shutters on sides with hardware wire on back. I’ve used that window in our living room, kitchen in KY and now in our bedroom over an old chest.
    We’ll have to find a source for the old windows here, hope we can find someplace.
    The dried flowers hung as they are look so pretty, good idea putting the shadowbox frame on back. I’ll have to show my husband that one. So glad you shared this project. Happy days

    Reply

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