Someone Else’s House… Antique Window Repurposed into Very Special Shadowbox

By 25 Comments

Happy May Day! I can’t send you all baskets of flowers, so I thought I’d share a story with you about some flowers and how my lovely daughter-in-law found a way to preserve them.

My daughter-in-law, 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 a story about some of those flowers, as they represent a lot. These flowers have very emotional remembrances tied to them. Here are a few of those memories…

Many of the flowers were given to her from my son when they were dating, and later engaged. A couple of those years were heart-wrenching, due to many factors, one being the difficulty in having a long-distance relationship they endured while she was finishing her under grad 3 states away from where he was working on his doctorate degree.

And some of the flowers were from friends and family given to her during this same time, when she found out she had a large bone tumor that was expected by all the doctors to be cancer, and after having most of her forearm bone removed, the tumor miraculously turned out to be benign.

These preserved flowers represent deeply emotional and sweet memories for both of them.

Here’s what she did with them:

She got a vintage window that had been removed from a horse barn where she used to ride. (I love re-purposing old windows too!) My son cut a piece of plywood to fit in the back and built a little frame about 2” deep to sandwich between the window front and plywood back.

The face of the plywood, (the part you can see) they covered with some of that heavy thick wallpaper that’s embossed to look like pressed tin. (I had it left over from some project.)

Then she made little bouquets from her preserved flowers and glue-gunned them onto the wallpaper, then finished it by connecting them with raffia tied around each bouquet.

She left the old simple whitewash finish on the window, and left on the remnants of the hinges too.

Aren’t the handles gorgeous? I love seeing the old hardware, it has so much character on the window.

Because my son and daughter-in-law still rent, they have hardware hung on the back of the window so they can easily hang it wherever they live. What a beautiful way to be reminded of God’s blessings and the hardships they’ve endured.

 

 

Yay! I was featured!!

and here:

 

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I’m linking up with these great parties, come visit all the great parties with me here:

 

http://www.holistichomemaking.org/2012/05/introducing-happy-hello-blog-hop.html?m=1

http://staceyembracingchange.blogspot.com/

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

  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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