Make a Kitchen Tool Vintage Shadow Box

If you are looking for a good way to display your old kitchen tools, this vintage shadow box with Mod Podge is the perfect decor project.

I had a friend that loved to collect vintage kitchen tools, and her collection was super cool. She didn’t want to use them, which I understood, because they were vintage and also they might have fallen apart in her cupcake batter.

Man Podger David came up with a way to display antique kitchen tools and I need to share it with my friend . . . I love this vintage shadow box. Hang it on the wall or prop it on the counter, either way it looks great with farmhouse decor. I’ll let David tell you how it’s made.

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OK, my grandmother (dad’s mom) was one of the most awesome women ever – and not much of a cook. But she LOVED donuts! My mother is equally terrific and a great cook. And she makes delicious, homemade donuts. The two of them got along famously needless to say.

When my grandmother passed away I ended up (I really have no idea how) with some odds and ends from her kitchen that have been sitting around in a “I-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-this-but-I-can’t-throw-it-away” box in my garage. Do you have one of those?

Kitchen Tool Vintage Shadow Box

Anyway, it dawned on me that I could make a little celebration of both of them their friendship and their love of donuts using a shadowbox, Mod Podge and a blown up recipe card. It was incredibly easy!

• Shadow Box (which I really should have cleaned before I photographed it. Sheesh!)
• Matte Mod Podge and foam brush
• Vintage kitchen utensils
• Small pieces of scrap wood to use as spacers – painted white
• Hot glue gun
• Spray paint

I decided to recreate my mom’s famous donut recipe as a background. You could easily take an old recipe card to Kinkos and have them blow it up for you.

I created my own using a great, free font called Octin Vintage (available for free download from DaFont.com), sized it to fit the back of the shadow box and printed it out.

I spread Mod Podge on the backer board that came with the shadow box and laid the recipe card graphic down smoothing out the wrinkles (although a few wrinkles seemed OK to me on this project) and set it aside to dry.

I also gave the vintage shadow box itself a quick coat of antique white spray paint.

I wanted the utensils to stand out a bit from the background – hence the small pieces of scrap wood. I painted them white so they would blend a little and then I used a glue gun to glue the scrap wood to the back of each utensil.

When the recipe card background had dried I trimmed the edges and I gave it a sealing coat of Mod Podge for a little extra shine.

After playing around with what I wanted for the arrangement I hot glued the utensils into place and re-assembled the shadow box. And “BAM,” a tribute to my donut loving forebears.

I left the glass out of the vintage shadow box for these pictures because all I was getting was a reflection of me taking a picture. What do you think? I’d love to know in the comments!

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If you’d like to see some of my other projects, here are a few I think you might enjoy:

• DIY Kitchen Cabinet Hardware with Mod Podge
• DIY Bookends Made from Vintage Rolling Pins
• DIY Coffee Bar Sign with Farmhouse Style
• DIY Recipe Holder Looks Great in Your Kitchen