Shadowbox

I’ve wanted to put a shadowbox together for little man even before he was born… actually when we decided what his going home outfit would be.

I bought the shadowbox back before we got married. I wanted to put wedding memories in it, but I could never justify putting anything flat in it (paper things) because shadowboxes were made for thick, fabric-like stuff. So the box sat and collected dust, and it move with us from our cottage.... and I was asked numerous time from the mister what in the world I was going to do with it. In all honesty, I had no idea. But I knew I'd eventually think of a use!

The newborn baby stage buzzed by us so fast that I didn't even think to pull his newborn outfit out before packing his clothes into storage. One day in October I went on a hunt in the attic to find all the pieces. I found the onesie, but knew the hat would be separated from the mittens, which would be in a different place than his shoes. I gave up, brought the onesie down, and vowed to go through his baby stuff later. 

Surprisingly, that happened in November! I got everything down, dumped it all in the middle of the living room floor and started organizing. See the problem with putting all this stuff away as he outgrew it was that we ended up with pacis with 12 month jackets, and bottles with 18 month shorts… I put all the newborn-3 month stuff together including sleepers. I put all the accessories (boppy, bottles, crib bedding etc) in another box. And then started boxes from 3-12 month winter, 3-12 month summer. Then 12 months -24 months. I have an entire box of PJs which I seperated (except for newborn -3 months) from the rest of the clothes. And everything got a beautiful label. I found his newborn outfit and then everything got moved to the shed. I seriously thought our ceilings were going to fall in from the attic because there were so many boxes. 

Here is the shadowbox:

I highly suggest using a real shadowbox. Although they cost more (and I'm sure there are ways to DIY one), the board inside the box was a foam material, perfect for using sewing pins. This one was from Hobby Lobby and the price was $23.99 but I'm picked it up for around $17. You know, Hobby Lobby always has a sale on something! Here's the board:

And nothing could be softer or sweeter than minky fabric...

I cut the minky exactly to the size of the board... no overlap because there wasn't room in the frame for overlap. I hot glued the minky to the board.

Next I arranged the clothes how I wanted them to make sure it would all fit and I started with the bottom layer first. In this case it was the pants. I pushed sewing pins through the clothes (in hidden creases) and into the foam board. Every few pins I would flip the board upside down to make sure that it was holding and to see where I needed to add more pins.

Here it is finished!

I love that the pins are totally hidden, but it still looks a little wrinkly and worn.

After I gathered all the supplies this took less than 5 minutes to assemble! I am so happy this is done!

The shadowbox found a permanent home in his new room on his toy shelf: