Time flies...

Hello and welcome - to visitors and followers old and new!  I have a sense at the moment of time flying away from me... the summer break I carved for myself out of a chaotic and difficult year is drawing rapidly to an end.  I'll be leaving the Czech Republic at the end of this week, and every second now is precious before the return to the turmoil.  I'm trying very hard to stay in the present moment and enjoy it, rather than worry about all the things hurtling towards me.  

So the project I'm sharing with you today is something of a reminder for myself.

There's something so beautiful about clock faces, especially vintage style and Roman numeral ones, and yet when you search for quotations about time, so many of them are about its inexorable ticking away of our lives.  One of my favourite lines from Richard II (possibly my favourite Shakespeare play) is the bitter, melancholy realisation he has towards the end:  I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

And then, on the other hand, there are the quotes which are about savouring, or living in the moment, and that rather more positive thought is the one I chose to match my lovely vintage clock faces with.

The piece is structured on an 8x8 sheet from Prima's Printery collection - a lovely combination of clocks and script - two of my favourite things, and there are even some keys thrown in for good measure!

I backed it onto some kraft cardstock for more stability, and then painted some gesso onto it in various places.  I kept it to quite a thin coat, so that the images beneath would still show through slightly.

One reason behind the gesso was that I needed to create a space to stamp the sentiment I wanted to use (using a little alphabet set I got for £1 in The Range).  It's stamped in Walnut Stain, though - as I've learned - when you stamp onto gesso it fades to a fabulous weathered look. And I love that you can still see the handwriting from the Printery paper beneath it.


One of the main features of my "canvas" is the large clock face cut in wax paper using Tim Holtz's Weathered Clock die.  The paper is crinkled and distressed with some Black Soot DI to dull down the colour a bit to tone in.



The dark demi-clock face beneath it is cut from the DCWV Tattered Time matstack - it has a slightly glossier finish, though I've distressed round the edge with the TH Paper Distresser (as I've also done with the Kraft backing, the Prima paper and pretty much anything else I could get my hands on!).

At the centre, the hands are held in place (besides the glue!) with a gorgeous brad from BoBunny - it comes in both their Weekend Market and their Et Cetera brad sets (and for all I know, in some others as well).

The brad got a little dab with some gesso too, wiped off, to just leave a little bit of a distress look to the clock face.

In the top right, over another gesso'd area, I blended Walnut Stain using my homemade clock mask (TH mask sheets cut using the same Weathered Clock die) to create a shadow clock.  This area also got a spritz of Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist to give it a vintage lustre.

The Grungeboard letters are from the Minis set, given a coat of sandy acrylic and distressed with Walnut Stain at the extremities.

I sewed some stitches of beige thread through the Idea-ology buttons but they are then (shh!) glued down.

There's a visual hint of another proverb in this corner if you're willing to 'read' it: a stitch in time...

The clock numerals paper arching over the top corners of the piece is again from the DCWV Tattered Time stack.

Down in the bottom left, I had some fun placing a trio of clocks, one Idea-ology, one within the paper, and one from, I think, The Bead Shop.  I juggled them for a while looking for the best positioning, but it wasn't until I brought my other framing element into play that I was happy with the result.

I'd thought right from the start that I wanted to use some strands from the disintegrating doormats here in the Czech house.  They are lovely woven mats, but now in a very distressed state themselves - and every once in a while a whole plait comes free, and I grab it for crafting purposes!

I did darken it slightly for this project with some Walnut Stain Distress Stain.







I had thought I wanted to do a full frame on all four sides, but that's now for a future project.

It wasn't right here... it needed to be just down in this corner, and once it was there, it was quite clear where the Bead Shop clock (now also with some gesso distressing) wanted to be.

I love that there's part of the fabric of this house (from which I haven't the slightest desire to depart, but events and work in the UK demand it) built in to this project!

You'll probably have spotted the final TH element - one of the Idea-ology Word Sticks... TIME, obviously.  I painted some white acrylic on and wiped the majority away, leaving the letters highlighted in the centre.

And then this vertical element is placed where the paper at the base of it all has a vertical divide between the script to the right and the images to the left.

Finally I cut some strips of mesh ribbon to provide an extra 'frame', and backed the whole thing with some more Kraft to make sure they stayed put!



So, there you have it... I'm working hard to find the space in every moment, and certainly when I'm crafting, I find that it is possible to enter 'the zone' of being really present and conscious.  Of course, I can spend hours at my craft table, but every one of the minutes feels like time well spent.

Thank you so much for sharing some of your precious time with me here at Words and Pictures today.  Your support and your feedback are a real pleasure, as are all the things I discover whenever I come and pay a return visit somewhere in Craftland!

I'm entering this in the following:
Out of a Hat Creations challenge this week, where the theme is Time
A second entry for the Allsorts challenge, Distressing
I'm joining the Sunday Stamper over at Hels Sheridan's Ink on my Fingers for More than Words
It's All About Vintage who are having an Anything Goes challenge this month

Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.
William Faulkner

But what minutes!  Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.
Benjamin Disraeli

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by.

J.M.Barrie