DIY Decorated Shadow Box Initial Art

DIY a shadow box with your initial and a few embellishments to create some meaningful, artwork that’s trendy and classic.

Hi Kenarry readers! It’s Lori from Greco Design Company and I’m here today to show you how to turn a regular, boring shadow box into a beautiful, personalized piece of art.

I love initials. I even have a whole wall of G’s in our home. And they seem to be a trend that’s sticking around for a long time. Here are the instructions on how to take a simple shadow box, add your initial, along with some colorful paper and embellishments, and create some meaningful art.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

• A shadow box. I found this Better Homes & Garden one at Walmart. It’s 12″ x 12″ with a depth of 1.25″.
• Decorative paper
• Acrylic Paint, black and white
• An initial. I found a 10″ unfinished wood one at Michael’s. You can find an assortment of letters at many art supply stores, home design stores or even Amazon.
• Fabric flowers – like this one. And these.
• Glue gun
• Super 77 Spray Adhesive, or similar
• Scissors or an X-acto knife

First, I took the back off of the shadow box and I added some color to the inside edges. To do this, I cut 4 strips from my scrapbook paper to fit the dimensions of my shadow box edges. They were each 11.5″ x 1.15″.

Next, I adhered the paper strips onto the edges with the spray adhesive.

I painted my wood initial gray by mixing black and white Liquitex acrylic paints. I like the rough look of the painted finish.

After the paint was dry, I attached the initial to the backing of my shadow box with a glue gun. My shadow box already had a nice beige linen backing. If yours doesn’t have a backing that you like, just attach a different piece of scrapbook paper – or even a piece of fabric.

Once the initial is attached, I added the fabric flowers. I like to arrange them in a small group on one corner of the initial. You should use a few different sizes of flowers and vary the colors to work with your decor.