3 -D Matchbox Valentine Diorama's

I've said it before, I love to make things with little matchboxes, so it should be no surprise I am still coming up with things to do with them!

I was just sort of making this little diorama for myself for fun, when my son saw it. He really surprised me how much he loved it! So I thought, I could hide it away and give it to him for Valentines Day.

 I had to make a second one for my daughter too!

My daughter is quite the little writer these days, so she got a little wolf typing away! 

Typing on a Robin's Egg Blue vintage typewriter of course! 

Here is how easy this was to make;

I just used a regular old small matchbox.  Instead of elaborate decorating I simply covered everything with a black sharpie marker in one coat. Very smelly, but provided quick and easy results!

I traced the background for size, and did a simple illustration in pencil, added color with watercolors,and went back over the pencils lines with black pen so they stood out. 

I used regular white glue to attach to the back.

To create a 3-D effect, I made 2 more layers, same technique, paper-pencil-watercolor-pen. I cut the image out, but left a tab to attach to the inside of the box, and colored over the tab with black sharpie so it does not show.

The top layer needs it's tab to be the thickness of the inside of the box, so that it stands on top. The tab of the layer below should be half the thickness, so it rests in the middle.

Fold all the layers inside the box, and your little diorama is ready for someone to love!

I kept it simple for the covers (as you can see above) and just glued another drawn image to the front.