A shadow box for "My Milwaukee: A Triptych"

If you're a frequent reader of my blog you'll definitely remember my 2013 Loose Bead Society challenge piece, a bracelet I called "My Milwaukee: A Triptych", since I wrote four posts about it.  If you're new and want to catch up, these posts will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about my design and production processes:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Since the bracelet is fragile - I accidentally broke the bikini lady off of the sailboat while bringing it to show Kim at Knot Just Beads - I decided early on that I would keep it safe by putting it in a shadow box.  I was lucky to find the perfect size box at Michaels on sale!  I might have even been able to use a coupon on it as well, but I'm a little fuzzy on that.

You know I've been busy with lots of stuff lately, so the piece stayed tucked away with the bikini lady just sitting out.  It's a miracle I didn't lose her.  Last night I asked Steve to glue her down again and to repaint part of the sailboat.  This morning I glued down one of the waves (for probably the fifth time), and this afternoon I finally assembled the shadow box, including printing out identifying information (title, who I am, what it was for, and what all the parts of the triptych refer to).

The shadow box I bought has the type of backdrop that you can pin things to.  That was one of the reasons I chose it - if I couldn't pin the bracelet to it, how was I going to keep it from flopping around?  It came with some pins, but the heads were big white balls.  I didn't like the way that looked, so I used some regular straight pins.  You can't even tell they're there.  I used about 10 pins, and that sucker ain't moving.

Fortunately early on I noticed that I was pinning it on upside down.  The backing has all the hardware for keeping it in the frame and for hanging, and I didn't pay attention to which way was up.

When I was done I cleaned both the inside and outside of the glass, cleaned lint up with some tape, and I hung it on the wall.  Then I took it off of the wall and out of the frame so I could take a picture of it.  Really, I didn't think things through very well today because I had to take it out of the frame about 10 times for different reasons.  Fortunately, that wasn't hard to do.  It's just frustrating because I kept forgetting something.

Here is the outside-of-the-frame shadow box:

I chose gray for the "identifying information" because white looked far too bright.  I wanted the focus to be on the bracelet and not on the paper.

Here it is in its frame and on the wall:

That's the perfect place for it because when I'm making jewelry, I face that wall.  I can look up and see it any time, and it's displayed very well (and safely!) for anyone who wants to see it.  I don't have to worry about anyone breaking anything off, and everything (but the bottom) is visible.