My friend was searching for a housewarming gift for her friend when she ran across this shadowbox on a stand from Wisteria. She had a vintage postcard of their hometown that she wanted displayed in a frame or shadowbox.
She loved this piece (who doesn’t, right?), but unfortunately she didn’t love the price tag of $129.00! Yikes.
So she asked a group of us if we could be on the lookout for something similar. I immediately thought of a candle stick that was sitting in my yard sale pile ready to be tossed out for next to nothing.
I offered to make her a knockoff version of this. Actually I offered up my husband to make her a knockoff.
Here’s the end result:
And here are the materials we used:
Black Rustic Wooden Shadowbox (8×10) from Hobby Lobby ($14.40 with my 40% off coupon)
1/4 yard of burlap fabric from Hobby Lobby
Thrift store candle stick with a base that unscrews like the one in this picture. (flipped upside down) I lucked out and had one available. Hopefully you might stumble upon one of these around your house, too!
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As a precaution we used masking tape on the frame in case the drill bit decided to crack or chip any of the wood. Then he measured the frame and found dead center from side to side:
And front to back:
Then he measured the depth of the inside of the shadowbox to make sure he didn’t drill right through the bottom. He marked the drill bit off with tape so he would know when to stop and pull the bit out.
Make sure the drill bit that you use is just a tad smaller than the threaded end of the candle stick. You want the threads to be able to bite into the wood as you screw it in.
X marks the spot where you drill:
And that’s it!
Remove the tape and blow the dust out of the hole.
Then screw in the candlestick really tight…
Then flip it over and admire your work!
Oh wait… I forgot to tell you to cut the piece of burlap to fit the back of the frame, then glue it down with a bit of hot glue in the corners. But you can handle that without a picture, right?
Right.
So.. grand total spent on this project was around $17.00 plus a little bit of tax.
Now doesn’t that sound much better than $129.00?
Totally.
I cannot wait to see how her vintage postcard looks in this frame. I bet it will be awesome!
Have fun ya’ll!
