Shadow Box

Over on the Ranger Yahoo group someone was asking about how to put a jacket in a shadow box. 17 years ago my hubby gave me an antique dress for my 35th birthday. I will turn 53 this year. The dress was made in the early 1900's.   For the first year I had the top and the skirt on a dress form in my sewing room. I  realized that it was not going to hold up and needed to the put out of the air. The skirt I left in the box and placed in a trunk. The skirt did not survive all these years. The shadow box I used was once a table. I took off the legs to make it a box. I used archival tissue paper to stuff the top. The dress is pinned to the velvet backing.  I had a lot of antiques that I added to the box. A purse, a comb, an invitation, ear rings, a watch bob and at one time I had a jeweled pen and pencil set. When my daughter was very small she took the pen and pencils out to play with. By the time I realized they were gone she had no idea what she had done with them. WE never found them. She is 24 now and still feels bad when she sees the dress without them. I have not been able to replace them.
When my freind and I placed the dress in this box, we had no idea what we were doing. We knew to use archival tisiue but that about it. We used foam tape to close the door of the box. That kept the air out and  to closed the box lid.
It has been a while since I've looked closely at the dress. It still makes me smile today.
Happy Crafting in 2012
Terri