Butterfly Shadowbox Pendant.
It'll come as no surprise to some of you that I love decoupaged shadow boxes, so I just had to try my hand at making a wearable one.
Thumbnail:
I constructed the box from scratch out of balsa. The butterfly was cut from a printed image, sealed, given a couple washes of paint, and topped with a thin gloss varnish, just enough to bring out the color. One of the paints I used is an iridescent one made for RC cars, which on something this tiny has a very subtle sparkle effect that's most visible in bright sunlight. (It isn't really visible through the lens, though.) The glass bead at the top has an AB finish which doesn't show well in the photos, but it complements the blue nicely.
The outer dimensions of the box are a little over 1 1/4" x 1", or just slightly taller than a quarter.
The box is about 3/8" deep on the inside. The butterfly's wings sit just below that, each propped by a seed bead beneath (not visible even at this angle).
I've misplaced the source for the text that lines the box, but it comes from a late nineteenth-century British book on collecting insects. It's protected by a matte varnish.
It took a lot of trial and error, but I'm pleased with the final pendant!
X-posted to craftgrrl ( here)
Thumbnail:
I constructed the box from scratch out of balsa. The butterfly was cut from a printed image, sealed, given a couple washes of paint, and topped with a thin gloss varnish, just enough to bring out the color. One of the paints I used is an iridescent one made for RC cars, which on something this tiny has a very subtle sparkle effect that's most visible in bright sunlight. (It isn't really visible through the lens, though.) The glass bead at the top has an AB finish which doesn't show well in the photos, but it complements the blue nicely.
The outer dimensions of the box are a little over 1 1/4" x 1", or just slightly taller than a quarter.
The box is about 3/8" deep on the inside. The butterfly's wings sit just below that, each propped by a seed bead beneath (not visible even at this angle).
I've misplaced the source for the text that lines the box, but it comes from a late nineteenth-century British book on collecting insects. It's protected by a matte varnish.
It took a lot of trial and error, but I'm pleased with the final pendant!
X-posted to craftgrrl ( here)