Thursday, January 20, 2011

A Shrine to Jewelry. Why Not?

You may have read in a previous post that the girls and I are doing a project in conjunction with the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX. We were to select three pieces from the collection and create a craft inspired by those pieces. I selected Joseph Cornell's Soap Bubble Set.


Joseph Cornell (1903-1972)

Soap Bubble Set (Lunar Space Object), ca. 1959 Mixed media

The division of space and use of three dimensional objects in the piece inspired me to create a Shadow Box Jewelry Shrine. From a "crafty" perspective (is there such a thing?) I always disliked the idea that jewelry gets hidden away in a box or drawer when not worn and loved the idea that it could be displayed as a part of a work of art and functionally stored at the same time. So I thought I'd share the "how to" with all you crafty folks out there.






I started with a dollar store frame and disassembled it (destruction is fun!)











 

I then cut a piece of self healing cork to the full size of the back. Cutting to the full size of the frame rather than the size of the glass was important because I wanted the background to sit away from the front of the frame to create a shadow box effect. I had to reinforce the cork with a stiff cardboard, so I cut up a box I had lying around. (Yes, that's a rip in the cork...no I am not Martha Stewart...I hid my boo boo by gluing it to the background. lol)
















I glued the cork to the backing.












I then selected an image from a vintage Life magazine. This one happened to be an ad for hair dye...something about washing the grey away.






I t
hen laid the frame upside down over the image, marked the proper placement for the ribbon, and attached the ribbon with both glue and staples.









Finally, I attached the backing to the frame. Broaches can be stuck directly in, the ribbon can be used as an earring hanger, and T-pins can be used to display any other jewelry in any desired configuration. Et Voila!




2 comments:

  1. love it! love how you put the ribbon across her eyes-- nice touch, lady!

    ReplyDelete