It is time to pull out your fussy cutting scissors and have some fun with Graphic 45 Brand Ambassador, Aleksandra Mihelič. In this post, Aleksandra walks us through her creative process and teaches us how to create a dimensional and vibrant home decor shadow box. This masterpiece highlights our Lost in Paradise paper collection and Matchbook Box. Enjoy all of the crafty tips, and the video tutorial.

Lost in Paradise ATC Shadow Box

By Aleksandra Mihelič

“Hello, dear Graphic 45 friends and fans.

I’m sure all of you probably experienced how sometimes “Life happens” and it takes a completely different path than we have planned for ourselves. So it happened to me too lately. I was experiencing some serious health issues over the past few months, which almost enabled me to work and create. All my energy was put towards recovering. I took some time off to recover, to restore myself and my health. I missed my creative hours so much but rest and break were much needed at this point in my life. I’m finally well again and so happy to be able to create again, spend some happy hours again in my studio and share some fresh inspiration with you all! I hope you’ll like it!

I’ve chosen one of my favourite past Club G45 editions and I uplifted it a bit. I went with June edition of Club G45 which featured ATC Matchbook box for storing an ATC album inside, made with beautiful “By the Sea” DCE paper collection. But I decided to instead turn it into a shadow box with some inspirational quotes, which itself can serve as a Home decor piece or a beautiful and thoughtful gift to someone dear to your heart.

Lost in Paradise seemed like a perfect collection for this kind of project with its happy bright summer colors and so many beautiful images to fussy cut.

TIP 1: Be careful not to position cut-outs for the inside of the box to close to the edges or they won’t be visible when you join both parts of the box together.

TIP 2: Don’t forget to also embellish the outside of the box, that way you’ll achieve richer look of your art piece. As I like to emphasize, Details are a very important part of “wow” factor with your art projects.

TIP 3: Do you see another “wow” factor? I also embellished the inside part of the outside box. Instead of adding a patterned paper I used one of Ephemera cards from the same collection, cut it to a proper size and attached it to the back. I wanted to have a quote on it so it gives you a little something extra when you open it.

You can have the box as a home decor piece on your shelf, either put together or like this. I like it better this way.

TIP 4: As you can see I also added lots of greenery inside the shadow box, between all the cut out pieces. I wanted to create a real touch of a Tropical paradise in it.

And a piece of quote inspiration for the one receiving this gorgeous box.

I’ve also prepared a video tutorial for you to follow along. You can find it on Graphic 45 Youtube channel. I hope you will find it helpful and it will reveal some new tips and tricks to you.

Video Tutorial: