More Homemade

Daughter L. made this vintage window nature scene for Daughter A. for Christmas. Daughter A. has always admired one their Aunt G. has in her kitchen, so L. began saving and drying field and ditch plants over the summer. We bought the old window frame on a rummage sale.

After she had all the materials, we had to figure out how to put it together. We thought it needed more depth than the frame gave us, and that there would need to be a natural looking background, so we went looking at Hobby Lobby. We bought one sheet of the thickest foam board we could find, and one sheet of a thinner foam board that had a light brown mesh pattern on it.

We cut the thick foam board into strips to line the bottom indented space of the frame (right next to the glass, but leaving a space between it and the glass), and put another strip along the back of the frame just below the first strip. We hot glued these on with the foam aiming up. Before glueing on the front strip, I attached some brown scrap material to mask the white foam board that faced the glass. We used these strips to poke the grasses and weeds into and hot glued them in place as needed. Sometimes pre-poking a hole with a toothpick was helpful for inserting finer plant stems. 

We also glued strips of the thick foam board to the sides to "build out" the depth of the frame to match the bottom width. The thinner, patterned board went on the back to seal it up when we finished the arranging. Because the back was so thick, I nailed tacking nails along the edge of each side and leaned them in to hold the board in place. I also sealed and secured the back by duct taping around all edges. We will finish it with a sturdy hanger.

 

When designing the frame we propped it up on our table near a front window so we could work on both sides of it. It was easier to arrange it with one person on each side of the frame. We added little nature finds (milkweed seeds, feathers, seed pods, etc.) in the little well created in front of the foam board strip at the bottom. We all liked the way this turned out.