American Flag Military Shadow Box
A framing project that I worked on for Christmas 2015... My customer brought me some military memorabilia belonging to his wife’s grandfather that he wanted to have framed for her for Christmas. He had three photos... a portrait, a class photo and a photo of the ship on which her grandfather sailed. Along with the photos was a folded American flag.
The folded flag was quite thick (~ 2 ¾”), which necessitated in creating a shadow box that was deep enough to display the flag without having the flag touch the glass. I have often made shadow box frames by making an extension box (cutting a moulding vertically) and stacking it with the face frame. This time, however, I needed to stack two extension boxes with a face frame in order to create enough depth – a first for me. The customer chose three different satin black moulding profiles from Roma Moulding​ which combined nicely together for this large frame (26" wide x 38" high).
The folded flag was quite thick (~ 2 ¾”), which necessitated in creating a shadow box that was deep enough to display the flag without having the flag touch the glass. I have often made shadow box frames by making an extension box (cutting a moulding vertically) and stacking it with the face frame. This time, however, I needed to stack two extension boxes with a face frame in order to create enough depth – a first for me. The customer chose three different satin black moulding profiles from Roma Moulding​ which combined nicely together for this large frame (26" wide x 38" high).
I stitched along the open edge at the front of the flag so it would stay in place and not flop forward. To mount the flag, I inserted a form made from 4 ply archival matboard in the back of the folded flag and stitched the open edge closed so the form wouldn’t slip out. I then used a combination of nylon tags and rust-proof pins into the back of the flag/form to attach the flag to the mounting board. Also, to help support the weight of the flag, I had the flag resting on the bottom ledge rather than ‘floating’ it within the mat opening.

The class photo was in pretty bad shape, with a large area of the top of the photo missing. I do the majority of photo restorations myself, but I knew this one was too complicated for me. I took it to the experts at Atlantic Photo Supply Fotosource​ to restore the missing sections of the photo, clean up the cracks and spots, reduce the size, and change it to black and white. What a fantastic job!
Before
After
A black suede mat was chosen from Peterboro Matboards​ designer suede collection and Tru Vue's conservation clear glass was chosen for its 99% UV protection.

My customer let me know after Christmas that his wife loved her gift. Another happy customer!
Share by: