Only the Shadow Knows.....

No this is not a post about building a radio or writing a show, although that does sound rather interesting. Actually, I am quite proud of my first ever shadow box. I can't really say I built this. However what I did do is buy a kit of an unfinished shadow box. I bought the kit from A.C. Moore, and must admit it was very reasonably priced. You might ask why I would want to do this, and actually I am not big on Shadow Boxes per Se, but I had a very specific item that I wanted to protect and display.

As part of my profession, I had the opportunity to travel with a 4-H club, the Dirty Dozen 4-H Shooting sports club to be exact, to see Tom Knapp, an incredible sharpshooter, perform. He along with two of the members of the U.S. Shooting Sports team were part of the Annie Oakley Boom Days in Pinehurst, NC. Mr. Knapp was kind enough to take the time to meet with the youth, take a photo with the club, and sign clays for everyone who came. Also the two members of the U.S. Olympic shooting sports team (who both began their shooting sports careers in 4-H) took photos and signed clays as well. These are once in a lifetime items and something that I would like to display to remember an incredible experience, but must do it in a manner that will keep these fragile clays from breaking. A shadow box would allow me to show the photos, clays, and even a spent shotgun shell that Tom Knapp used that day. Basically everything is framed behind glass with a two inch depth between the glass and mounting board.

The first thing I had to do was determine what color to paint the frame. For those of you who know me I absolutely love the natural look of wood. I will stain it, poly it, rarely do I paint it. However, not every thing goes with day glow orange. In an effort to let the color of the clays and photos stand out I thought basic black would be best. So I spent a little time painting the frame inside and out. After the paint dried I nailed the claw hanger in place. Now here comes the harry part. The instructions (not that I am one who likes instructions) said to hot glue the corners of the glass in place. Not wanting to take any chances of the glass and glue perhaps drying out one day, genius my decided to use super glue. In case you don't already know this the fumes from superglue are used to activate the oil in fingerprints. It is some really amazing stuff. However when I set the glass and frame down on a plastic bag it trapped the fumes and they adhered to the glass. So in an effort to make it better I took Windex to the glass to clean it up. Problem was the glue was not completely dry. Thus I began spreading it around on the glass. A few new words later, when I was sure the glue was dry, and not moving from where I smeared it from, I got a straight razor and carefully scraped off the dry glue. My advice if you do this project is not to use super glue, I will try not to do it on future projects.

Finally after I had secured the clays, shot gun shell, photos, and placed the wording in the center it was time to put the back in and secure it. I must admit the clays and shotgun shell have been secured with Velcro so that I would not damage them if I wanted to move them. The photos were done with double sided tape. I can get into it at anytime should things move but I truly hope they won't.

This was fun to put together, reasonably inexpensive (much more so than buying a finished shadow box) and when I got done well let's just say I am happy with the final outcome.