Shadow boxes are a great way to display 3D objects and memorabilia. They are an ideal way to preserve and showcase memories of special moments and events. If you’re looking for a unique and beautiful gift for your significant other, consider making a couple shadow box.
Traditionally, shadow boxes were made as wall-mounted or mantle display cases, and were often crafted from fine domestic wood with compartments to hold various objects or items such as medals, trophies, flags, and even personal mementos.
More recently, shadow boxes can also be made with a glass-enclosed display case and can accommodate anything from sports memorabilia to artwork and photographs. The traditional methods of crafting shadow boxes with compartments within a wooden frame are still widely used to showcase military medals and awards.
Now with the power of cutting machines like Cricut, Brother ScanNCut, and Silhouette, making a shadow box at home has never been easier, and you can create something that is not only simple to make but also a special way to express your love.
Making a couple shadow box using ready-to-cut files is super simple. For first time makers, here are the things you will need:
This second option is just right for you who would like to have a more traditional look of a couple shadow box. Shadow boxes are originally made up of little trinkets with memories that you arrange inside a frame.
You can recreate that using a cutting machine by making a replica of a flower bed.
What I suggest is cutting a bunch of paper rolled flowers using thick paper or cardstocks, then you can place the flowers delicately inside a wooden frame. You can even arrange the flowers in a lovely heart shape.
After that, cut a separate vinyl (decal) to put on the glass display. The decal could be anything from the names of you and your partner, a short love confession, to a movie/book quote that means something to the both of you.
You can color-code the entire couple shadow box craft, rolled flowers and vinyl, with a beautiful color palette. Here are some color palette suggestions for you to try.
If you’re completely new to Cricut Design Space, I can show you how easy it is to create your own shadow box using a free font.
1. Start a New Project on Cricut Design Space.
2. Using the Text tool on the left hand side of the screen, input the text you want. Here I picked “You mean the world to me”.
3. Adjust the text positioning. For my design, I broke up the sentence into 3 lines.
4. Edit the font. In this tutorial I keep Cricut’s default font Cricut Sans.
5. On the upper toolbar, you can find the Offset tool. Click on it to add Offset to the text. You can adjust the distance and corner type. I picked the rounded corner with 0.75 cm gap.
6. Repeat the Offset step for as many layers as you wish.
7. Next, insert a square from the Shapes tool.
8. If you’re going to display this couple shadow box inside a frame, resize the square following the size of the frame that you have. I have mine in 20 x 20 cm size.
9. Compare the largest offset result with the square. If the offset is larger, you need to resize all objects excluding the square so that they still fit well within the square. My text and offset results are still smaller than the square, so I can move on to the next step.
10. Duplicate the square with as many layers as you have and then add an extra one for the back layer.
11. Now we will combine the squares with the Offset objects. To do that, select one offset and one square. Click on the Align option then choose Center Horizontally. Click on the Align option again and choose Center Vertically.
12. After that, right click on the square and click “Send to Back”. Make sure the square is behind the Offset object.
13. Now select both the Offset object and square, on the Combine tools on the bottom right of the canvas, and select Subtract. That is one layer of your couple shadow box done.
14. Repeat steps 11 – 13 until all layers are done.
15. Add color to each layer.
16. Now you can pile the layers on top of each other to get an estimate of how your couple shadow box will turn out.
17. As an addition, you can insert shapes like hearts or stars from free Shapes.
18. Then combine it with the shadow box like this.
Here’s another text shadow box I made using rainbow colors.
Which couple shadow box method are you going to try? Hope these ideas inspire you to make a memorable gift for your loved one! Now you can even shop our shadow box through our Instagram shop below.
