We are a family that loves to travel and see different parts of the United States, hence the numerous travel posts on this blog. We enjoy finding historic or scenic destinations to experience and learn about both local sites and locations in other states. Whenever our family travels on local weekend day trips or longer road trips that last for a couple of weeks at a time, we always try to take fun photos to remember those happy times. In this post I will discuss two special travel photos that were framed in shadowboxes and combined with artificial flowers to create wonderful mementos of our travel experiences.
The library room of our home is filled with our numerous family travel mementos and it gives us great pleasure to look at them and remember fun times at some great places. Having these travel items displayed in the library has also proven to lead to great conversations with family and friends that have visited our home. (For more information and decorating tips on displaying travel photos and souvenirs, please click on the Décor Post – Displaying Travel Souvenirs)
The first step to creating the travel-themed framed floral shadowboxes discussed in this post is finding the appropriate frame with some space between the photo mat and the glass front. This is very important because the artificial flowers that are being used for the project need to have some enough room to be displayed without being flattened against the frame’s glass. Craft Tip: Sometimes finding shadowbox frames that fit the project size and color specifications might not be available, so when I see shadowbox frames on sale at our local craft stores I always purchase extra ones to have on hand for future craft projects.
Another key element in creating the framed floral shadowboxes is the selection of the photo. When selecting a photo chose one that has something of interest – it could be a person, an animal or maybe a building such as a barn. Then, using a computer with a photo application (I use Picasa) crop the photo so that the focus of the picture is slightly offset to the opposite side that the flowers will be display within the frame. When you are happy with the cropped version, print a copy of photo selecting a size that would fit into the frame. Next, disassembled the frame, cut the flowers stems to fit the size of the frame and then inserted the flowers off to one side fitting them between the frame and the glass. When you are happy with the placement of the flowers, insert the photo into the frame and reassembled the backing.
The final element is the selection of the floral items to be displayed within the shadowbox frame. In the two examples shown below, I tried to color coordinate the type of flower with the photo that I selected. Another thing to keep in mind when choosing flowers is the size or scale of the flowers should be in proportion to the size of the photo and frame. Larger photos and frames would require larger flowers while smaller photos and frames would require smaller flowers. Also in the two examples I used artificial flowers but dried flowers can also be used.
First example of a travel-themed framed floral shadowbox –
During one of our weekend day trips back in 2005 we visited the California Poppy Reserve located near Los Angeles, CA where we took several photos of the beautiful scenery that sunny spring day and one of those photos was a cute picture of our daughter wearing a yellow shirt and crouching behind some orange poppy plants. Using this photo I wanted to create a shadowbox to display in our library home. Taking inspiration from the colorful flowers that we saw during our visit to the reserve I found some artificial flowers that looked very similar to poppies. I was very happy with the result of this easy craft project and the photo is now displayed on the shelf in the library of our home. (For more information about our trip to the reserve which we highly recommend if you are in the area during the wildflower bloom in early spring, please check out the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve travel post)
Second example of a travel-themed framed floral shadowbox –
In 2006, our family took another weekend trip to the Lompoc Flowers Fields located in Central California. It was another beautiful and sunny day during our visit and the fields of flowers were beautiful. One of the photos we took that day is of our daughter wearing a purple shirt standing in front of rows of colorful sweet-peas. Taking inspiration from her purple shirt, I used a few stems of artificial lavender that coordinated with the colors of the pale pink, purple and bright red sweet-peas. I think the framed floral looks great displayed in our home.
(For more information and decorating tips on displaying travel photos and souvenirs, please click on the Décor Post – Displaying Travel Souvenirs)