How to make a shadow box: from a frame, from wood or from paper
How to make a shadow box three ways: deepen a picture frame, build one from timber with a cut list, or stack cut paper. With depths and ways to fix things in.
Published
A shadow box is a frame with depth: a shallow box with glass on the front, deep enough to hold things that are not flat. People use them for keepsakes (a baby’s first shoes, medals, a wedding bouquet), for collections, and for layered paper scenes that are made to be looked into. The making comes down to three decisions: how deep, what the box is built from, and how the contents are held in place.
First, the depth
Measure the thickest thing going in, and add 10 mm so that nothing touches the glass. That is the inside depth you need, from the back of the glass to the front of the backing board.
| What goes in | Inside depth to allow |
|---|---|
| Layered paper scene, six sheets | About 20 mm |
| Medals, badges, coins, tickets | 20 to 25 mm |
| Folded clothing, a pinned shirt | 30 to 40 mm |
| Baby shoes, a small toy, shells | 60 to 75 mm |
| A ball, a mug, a dried bouquet | 90 mm or more: measure it |
Deeper is not better. A box much deeper than its contents puts them in shadow and makes them look lost. If one thing is far thicker than the rest, raise the thin things on blocks of foam board so everything sits at a similar distance from the glass.
Way one: deepen a picture frame
An ordinary picture frame holds its glass in a shallow step called the rebate, which is rarely more than 10 mm deep. To turn the frame into a shadow box, you add a box behind it.
- Take out the backing board and measure the glass. Leave the glass in the frame.
- Make four strips as wide as the depth you need. Timber 10 to 12 mm thick is easiest; 5 mm foam board, doubled, works for a light box that will hang out of reach.
- Join the strips into a rectangle whose inside is 6 mm smaller than the glass in each direction. The front edges of the box then overlap the glass by 3 mm all round and hold it in the rebate.
- Paint or paper the inside faces now. They will be seen.
- Glue the box to the back of the frame, centred, and weight it down until the glue sets. If the glass can rattle, pack the rebate with strips of card first.
- Cut a backing board to the outside size of the box. Mount the contents on it (see below), then fix it on with small screws, not glue, so that the box can be opened again.
Way two: build the box from timber
For a box with plain square corners, you need four sides and a back. Decide the inside width, the inside height and the depth, and note the thickness of your timber.
| Part | How many | Size |
|---|---|---|
| Sides | 2 | Inside height long, depth wide |
| Top and bottom | 2 | Inside width plus twice the timber thickness long, depth wide |
| Back | 1 | Width and height of the outside of the box, in 3 to 6 mm plywood or hardboard |
For an inside of 200 × 250 mm, 60 mm deep, in 12 mm timber: two sides of 250 mm, a top and bottom of 224 mm, all 60 mm wide, and a back of 224 × 274 mm.
Glue and pin the corners with the top and bottom capping the sides, check that the two diagonals measure the same, and let it set. For the front, the simplest answer is a picture frame of the same outside size glued on as in way one. Without one, glue a thin strip round the inside, 3 mm back from the front edge, rest the glass or clear acrylic against it, and hold it in with a second strip in front.
Acrylic is lighter and safer than glass for a box that will be handled, posted or hung in a child’s room. It scratches more easily, so leave its film on until the box is finished.
Way three: a paper shadow box
A layered paper shadow box needs no carpentry. The picture is the box: five to eight sheets of card, each cut with part of a scene, stacked with a few millimetres of foam between them in a deep frame.
The shadow box maker builds these. Pick a scene, move or swap its parts, choose your frame size, and download one cutting file per sheet; it checks that every sheet is a single piece and that nothing is too thin to cut. The Cricut shadow box guide covers cutting and stacking, and the light box guide covers putting a light behind it.
The backing board
The contents are fixed to the backing, not to the box. Foam board 5 mm thick is the usual choice, because pins push into it and it weighs almost nothing. Cover it before you mount anything: wrap fabric (linen, felt, velvet) round it and tape it at the back, or glue on a sheet of good paper. Plain dark colours make metal and pale things stand out; pale linen suits fabric and paper.
How to attach things
Use the gentlest method that will hold. Anything precious should be fixed in a way that can be undone.
| What | How to hold it |
|---|---|
| Photographs, tickets, letters | Photo corners, or paper hinges at the top edge. Avoid ordinary sticky tape, which yellows and stains |
| Clothing and fabric | Stainless steel pins through seams and hems into the foam board, or a few stitches of matching thread taken through the board |
| Medals, badges and pins | Push the pin through the covered board and fit its clasp behind |
| Light solid things: shells, dried flowers, keys | A small dot of clear silicone or PVA. Hot glue holds at once but can let go if the box gets hot, and it will not come off fabric |
| Heavy things: a mug, a horseshoe, a ball | Fine wire or fishing line through two small holes in the backing, twisted or tied at the back. Add a small shelf under anything round |
Laying it out
Arrange everything on a sheet of paper the size of the backing before fixing anything, and take a photograph when it looks right.
- Put the largest thing in first, a little off centre, and build round it.
- Keep at least 15 mm clear between the contents and the walls.
- Overlap flat things (a photo behind a medal, a ticket under a shell) to add depth.
- Leave some of the backing empty. A box filled to its edges reads as clutter.
For what to put in, see the list of shadow box ideas.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Contents slump after a few weeks | Held by glue or tape alone | Add pins, stitches or wire; rest heavy things on a shelf |
| Things press on the glass | Box too shallow | Add a strip to deepen the box, or remove what is behind the thickest thing |
| Dust or specks inside | Sealed before it was clean | Open the back, blow it out, and wipe the inside of the glass |
| Glass rattles | Rebate deeper than the glass | Pack the rebate with strips of card |
| The box hangs tilted forward | The wire is slack or fixed low on the back | Move the hangers nearer the top and shorten the wire, or hang the box on two screws with no wire |