How to Make a Shadow Box: Decorating the Gourd

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village my name is Karen LoCasale and I'm here to tell you about gourd art, shadow box. OK, so you should have your hole done, we've burned the outside, we have did your dye-whatever color we want on the outside, if you want a little bit more design on here that's fine. So, now we're getting to the point of what do we want the inside to look like. In this case I've made a little adobe and how I've made that is with simple Styrofoam. Just one thing to look for in your Styrofoam, there's a couple of different kinds. There's the kind that is made of little tiny, almost like dots, it works but when you cut it all those little tiny pieces make more of a mess. There is more of a solid Styrofoam that works a lot better for you, either way works. Two more quick things on Styrofoam, you cannot use spray paint on Styrofoam, it will melt it, and you can't use a lot of different glues on it either, so kinda experiment with that before you get your design. On this, what I've done, I've cut my pieces out and I've used spackling material to paint it and then gone back over and painted it the color I would like. I've made my little adobe, we've painted it out the way we want it, add the little embellishments, you can use little beads, little rocks, pieces of leather or felt whatever works for you. And then, lastly, you can do your embellishment on the outside adding your feathers, pieces of leather, in this particular case it's a Christmas motif so I've used a grapevine wreath that was used for like a napkin ring, made it into a wreath, and added some little bit of fake snow there."