Mori Girl Art – Mixed Media Forest In A Box

Recently I was flipping through a magazine and saw a project someone had made of a pretty little collage in a box. It was fairly simple, but it gave me a good idea to make a Mori girl art project in/on a 3D space instead of flat on a piece of paper. I wanted to make a little vignette in a box too, so I picked up a cheap little wooden box at Michaels. My inspiration came from the forest, natch. I thought it would be awesome to make a little forest in a box.

I painted the box with gesso and brown acrylic mixed with gel medium, and sanded it down. I also glued the glass into the frame. When it was all dry, I made a background for the inside out of various papers, wire and beads. I also used some interesting dried lichen I found on a walk a few months ago. I cut up some twigs from our Christmas tree trimmings, and made them into little trees.

I used my Dremel to drill some holes in the top of the box to poke the twigs through, so the trees are growing up and out of the box. Then I set about decorating everything. I used train scenery and floral arrangement moss for the bottom of the forest and around the top of the twigs. I hung a tiny acorn and some teeny pinecones from the twig trees. I also drew some wee little moths and glued them onto the branches. Then I used air dry clay to make some itty bitty mushrooms for the forest floor, and some scale fungus for the sides of the box.

I painted some little white fawn dots on the front around the glass on the front of the box. Then I glued all kinds of pinecone scales around the sides. I drew a sketch of some trees for the back so it wouldn’t be bare, and colored it with watercolors. To finish it up, I made a message on the front, “into the forest” out of paper and some copper beads.

This was an incredibly fun project to make! I put it up on my bookshelf – its like a window into a tiny fairytale world.