Decorating your dorm or apartment in college can be a sore battle. It truly is stressful trying to come up with cheap options to decorate your space that are also cute. I found that making a lot of decorations myself can ease the hurt that my bank account tends to feel when I am moving into college. Yet, DIY projects are risky. I am sure we have all had those moments of wishful thinking, when we see a DIY project executed perfectly online and then going in on an attempt and receiving miserable results. I sure have been there too. In spite of this, I have a do-able decor project that has promising results!
This past summer, I went flower picking with my significant other. It was so fun and we were able to make our own bouquet of flowers. They turned out beautiful and I was so happy with them. It made me so sad to see them start to curve downwards in the vase. I decided to save them, and they were placed on a paper towel, and unfortunately I am embarrassed to admit I stayed there for quite a while. I wasn’t quite sure what I would end up doing with them. I was thinking of pressing them, but the flowers were so thick and I found it difficult to make them flat. I ended up finding a shadow box at Michaels’ that worked amazingly.
All I had to do was glue a background page onto the back of the shadow box. With the dried up flowers, I took some hot glue and carefully dabbed some dots on places that the flower would touch the paper. It is a little tricky with 3D objects, but just plan ahead the placement of the flowers so you can determine where to put the glue! After I glued them on, I simply let them dry for a couple hours and then I placed the front of the shadow box to the back attachment with the flowers. Honestly, I was worried the flowers would fall down. Yet it has successfully been hanging in my bedroom for three months!
I was so pleasantly surprised by this project that I think I will make another one. It was hard to figure out how to accomplish my goal, yet after finding the correct materials, (which was the hard part) I was able to execute it, and have the cutest decor piece for my apartment. And it was less than $20!
