Enjoy the Little Things in Life - Shadowbox Mixed Media

It’s the little things in life that we often miss because we are too busy making plans for the future. About three years ago, I decided to switch my life’s thinking about how I viewed the world. I was living constantly planning and thinking about the future and how if I could this or that I would be happier. All which made me the more unhappy. The situation was more complicated than that, which probably would fill up another blog. As an homage to choosing to live life to the fullest, on your own terms and not sweating the challenges that life brings us, I made this piece as a reminder to enjoy the little things, inch your way to you life’s goal, and always give gratitude for all things (big or small).

How it’s made

This is a reverse canvas mixed media. The canvas is 8 x 8 and is 1.5 inches deep. I just love using this kind of canvas as a shadowbox.  The canvas is painted with a light and dark purple acrylic paint. I used ribbon, lace and mental embellishments. The corners are made out of silver metal. To fastened ribbon or lace, I recommend using dry glue because wet glue warps the material and tends to seeps through the material.

The tree is made out 26 gauge green coated jewelry wire. I cut 92 individual pieces of wire. The length of each piece of wire is 16 inches.  You will need about 10 yards, more if you want a fuller tree. The tree will be half the size of the original wire’s length and even smaller if you bend the tree’s trunk and branches, like I have done.  I started by twisting the trunk, leaving enough room to for the branches and roots. Then I made the branches. The leaves are made using a spiral like shape with the round nose needle pliers. The pink flowers are made out seed beads. The tree kind of looks like a cherry blossom bonsai tree; we have a lot of cherry blossom trees in DC. On purpose, I scraped out some of the green coat to expose the copper in the trunk area,. I like hoow the copper, green and pink leaves look together.  Then I wrapped the tree on a rock from my backyard. Then I coated the roots with a Modge Podge dimensional magic glue, looks like varnish or glaze. To be realistic, it's not easy gluing wire to rock, I had to fight with the wire quite a bit to keep it in place. Then I glued the tree to the canvas, make sure to very strong glue, I used E6000.

Til next time and remember….enjoy the little things in life.