Friends Shadow Box With Hooks and a Shelf

Monica's apartment (Friends TV series) had a fascinating colour scheme, specifically the iconic purple door with its funky, yellow frame. I've been a massive fan of the show, and an even bigger fan of the weird colour combinations. In this instructable I'm going to show you how to make a shadowbox/ keyholder/ funky wall decoration with mainly wood, mdf and paint. It's not difficult, takes a few hours, but it's well worth it.

1. Wooden box - mine is 7 x 9 x 2 inches
2. Thin MDF boards (2-3mm thick) - it's much easier to create this project on a flat piece of MDF and then glue it on the inside of the box, especially if your box is deep.
3. Wood: popsicle sticks, stirring sticks, bamboo skewers, thin dowels, balsa wood and thin modelling plywood
4. Tools- ruler, very sharp scalpel, exacto knife, small hand saw with tiny teeth
5. Glue- superglue, wood glue and glue gun
6. Modelling putty - optional
7. Fimo modelling clay for small details or 3D printer
8. Optional- small mitre box to create perfect 45° angles, bought or home-made
9. Paint, tiny brushes, varnish, hanging hooks, short chain
10. TWEEZERS!!!

I used tinkercad to create the design of my door, as well as regular paper and pencil method, to be sure everything is as proportional as possible. I recommend using tinkercad as a rough guide, as it will give you an idea on how big to make every detail and where to position them.

I then cut my mdf board into pieces that fit into the wooden box. Bottom of the box and 3 sides - one side remains empty as it will act as the floor of the apartment.

Lastly, I drew the patterns on the mdf boards with a pencil and decide what parts to use to create the door frame and the rest. You can go with square pieces, you can go with round dowels (or skewers), 45° angles, or easier, but uglier, 90° angles.

The most time-consuming part of this project is cutting small pieces of wood or dowels into perfect shapes. So, a good, heavy ruler and a sharp knife is a must, but you might also benefit from using a mitre box to help with cutting square or round pieces.

Mitre box will save you a lot of time. It also gives you more precision and a better, neater finish.

You can buy a mitre box, 3d print it or make it out of wood. I 3d printed a small version specifically for my dowels and skewers and for cutting it, I used a hand saw with tiny teeth.

While cutting all those pieces, you might also need to use other tools like: side cutter pliers, cable cutters, scissors, exacto knife.

Give each cut piece a quick and gentle sanding, to remove any snags.

Using superglue, tweezers and fingers I attached each piece of the wall one by one. I left the pencilled sketch on the board to guide me.

The more details you add, the more interesting and realistic the final result will be.

When all pieces (sides included) are assembled, you can glue the mdf boards inside the wooden box.

Then, it's time to seal everything with a clear drying PVC glue. This is just a precaution in case superglue isn't strong enough and pieces start to fall down later on. Just brush the entire model with glue and leave it to dry.

Optional step is adding putty to fill in any gaps where joints are.

This step is a bit of a modge podge when it comes to supplies. A string of embroidery thread, small piece of PVC plastic sheet, soft balsa wood, popsicle sticks, modelling clay and a 3D printed door knob and yellow frame (use modelling clay if you don't have a 3D printer). I used whatever I had on hand, scraps and bits, some superglue and a sharp scalpel. Majority of it was just different sized squares and rectangles I cut out of wood and then embellished.

I painted everything with a tiny brush and varnished it in the end. I screenshot a a bunch of episodes to have some reference and tried to replicate it as best as I could.

I left small bits of masking tape on the board to mark where I have to attach small details later on. I just painted over them and once paint was dry, I removed the tape. Bold spots worked as a guide when I began attaching (with superglue again) all tiny details.

To make the frame you have to scale the pattern (second picture) and adjust it to the size of your wooden box. Then, print the design, cut it out and transfer the outline onto an mdf board. Cut the design out and round the edges with a sanding pad.

To colour it yellow you can:

1. Paint it with acrylics - might be tricky because yellow paints are not always reliable and opaque and they can take multiple layers to achieve desired effect
2. Spray-paint it
3. Use thick cardstock - simply glue it to the frame and trim with exacto knife when dry
4. Use large, thin plastic sheet- again, just glue it to the frame, let it dry and trim it

Since devil is in the details, I also added some swirls to the frame. Mine were made in a vinyl cutter, I left SVG files below if anyone is interested. They can also be hand drawn with a black marker.

To glue the frame to the box, I used wood glue and for a good measure I also added a layer of hot glue at the back of the frame.

Lastly, I drilled a few holes in the frame and added hooks.