When a good idea goes horribly awry

This week, I've been trying to work on my over-the-mantel arrangement, and get everything looking like I want it. I'm sort of going for a vintage-childrens'-literature theme, and I've been obsessed with The Wizard of Oz forever, so that's pretty much the dominant book. This involves painting a frame that I really should have figured out how to paint without taking it off the glass, and finding a great way to display some gorgeous Wizard of Oz ornaments that Emily gave me for Christmas. They're really too pretty (and not too Christmasy) to just be out at Christmas.

And so enters my great idea - I'll do a shadow box or display box, where the figurines can be out all the time. I went to the dollhouse store (very cool, by the way), where I found a perfect display box - pre-painted, easy to assemble, perfect dimensions. They also had some little wooden... things... that were originally meant to hold up shelves, but had holes through them. I thought, hey, the ornaments have twine loops, I can just loop them through the holes. Still all sounding great in my head. Even better, I had the idea to cover the back with a nice scrapbook paper. Lovely, right?

Here it is, upside-down, right after I glued in the hangers. Looking great, no? Nice paper, cute hangers, good-looking box...



This was all great until I'd tied on the ornaments and stood the box upright.



...yeah.

Ornaments on a tree are ALL hung from something, so it looks normal, but human/humanoid figurines, hanging at a time other than Christmas from twine on their heads? SO SO SO CREEPY AND MORBID.

So.

This project is being re-thunk. Look for it again when I figure out how to re-work it to not look like the witch's forest was just entirely too dark and depressing.