Happy May Day! (a little late) Did you get any special flowers for May Day?
Several years ago, one of my daughters-in-law 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. This isn’t about the drying process though, (I think she just hung them upside down and they dried). This post 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.
Some 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 abroad). Melissa was finishing her under grad 3 states away from where Aaron was working on his doctorate degree.
There were another group of flowers included in these dried flowers that weren’t from Aaron though.
It was during those college years when Melissa was having a lot of arm pain that kept getting worse and worse. She was diagnosed with a large bone tumor. The doctors tried to prepare Melissa for the worse, as all signs pointed to a malignant bone tumor. Those were scary days. She had surgery and a large section of her forearm bone was removed. Miraculously, the tumor turned out to be benign. Flowers from that recovery were dried and included.
Melissa’s creative way to display all these flowers was by building a shadow box using a vintage window.
The vintage window had been removed from a horse barn. She and Aaron worked on this project together. They cut a piece of plywood to fit in the back and built a frame of 1 x 4’s around the sides of the plywood to allow the shadowbox space between the window 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 a project.)
Melissa then made little bouquets with her preserved flowers and using hot melt glue, attached them onto the wallpapered plywood. She finished the bouquets with raffia gently attached to each group of flowers sort of swagged across.
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.
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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!
Sophie says
What a precious story about your daughter-in-law!!! Thank you soooo much!!!
Liz says
Thank you, she is very precious too. ❤️
Jann says
I love this idea! Thank you so much for sharing.”
Jann