I love seeing visitors on my doorbell camera exploring the aquatic scenes.
THE INSPIRATION
I saw this lamp online and it caught my eye because I liked the concept of an open base with the fish and driftwood. It gave me an idea for our entrance way in Florida. I was looking for something coastal and interesting to dress up the entrance porch wall and this was going to work out perfect and it would be something unique to my home.
I love seeing visitors on my doorbell camera exploring the aquatic scenes.
THE INSPIRATION
I saw this lamp online and it caught my eye because I liked the concept of an open base with the fish and driftwood. It gave me an idea for our entrance way in Florida. I was looking for something coastal and interesting to dress up the entrance porch wall and this was going to work out perfect and it would be something unique to my home.
I had a lot of shells and sand dollars ready to go, but the coral and plants were from Amazon aquarium shops.
BRINGING IT TOGETHER
I built the frames by hand using corner brackets and glue to be sure the structure was solid.
I painted the frames and distressed them a bit to help them coordinate more with the driftwood look.
The frames were 16 X 16 in size. I chose to make them myself because I had an exact size and depth in mind. But you could also try using a shadow box frame wih the glass removed.
I wanted to create a three-dimensional effect with depth throughout the scene, positioning some items further back and others in the foreground.
Mapping out and securing the placement of driftwood and coral pieces to achieve the 3-D effect.
Some pieces had to be cut down. Others were a little too short, but adding some shims of wood tightened their placement and fixed the problem.
The bottom of the scene will be covered with lots of decorative pieces, so the base of the branches and their shims won't be seen.
With the driftwood and coral secured, I began strategizing on how to place the sea creatures, shells, and plants.
It was important to take photos along the way because everything had to be removed before the step-by-step gluing began.
The hot glue gun worked like a dream for this project. I made sure to secure pieces from the front and the backside.
I tried to enhance the underwater perspective by arranging larger items at the bottom and smaller ones towards the top.
Almost there! It was a nice surprise to see how rich the scene looked with a colored background.
The second diorama went a lot faster as I now had a good feel for where things should be placed. I decided to mount the finished pair within a section of sea-green.