A Thousand Splendid Quotes

Hello everyone, and welcome (back, if you've already visited once today to see What's On My Workdesk this Wednesday)...  

Don't adjust your sets, you really are at Words and Pictures, and once again there's a break in our normal broadcasts to bring you some unscheduled programming in colour... yes, multi-colour!

When Simon Says Stamp and Show offered up Quotable as this week's challenge, it slightly sent me into a spin - how on earth to narrow down all the quotes I love and select one for a project?!  After all, I add quotes to the bottom of each post already, and I still haven't run out...

Then I remembered that I'd collected some new quotes at the beginning of March ready to enter the House of Bears' Literary Challenge.  This month they're offering as inspiration Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Now, for once I haven't read the inspiration book - but the bears always provide a detailed synopsis (they're highly literate bears), as well as suggested themes and ideas for creative inspiration based on the book.

As many of you will know, I often find my trigger in words, so I went in search of some to fit the bill.








As well as the Thousand Suns of the title, I took inspiration from the story they described as being all about despair, endurance and ultimately hope, and I found this particular quote which seemed just about perfect.

Then it all went on the back burner as travelling, dollshouses, and other stuff took over...









But the SSSaS challenge kicked me back into action, and so here we are.  And it really is the quote which controlled the making of this piece.

As anyone who knows my work will tell you, multi-coloured creations are pretty much the last direction I would think of going in... but there was the rainbow right at the centre of the quote - and it had to be at the centre of the project too.










Tim Holtz embossing folders play a major role in this piece.  Because of the Thousand Splendid Suns and the sun in the quote, it was the Rays embossing folder which kicked it all off...












Then I needed rain - and decided the Retro Circles would serve as the concentric ripples from lots of drops of water falling into puddles.

And then I do just seem to have a thing about triptyches: the rule of three - always works in rhetoric, and works for me in crafting too.  So then the rainbow had a bit more room to spread out.











I chose the lovely Springtime Background, with the leafy vines, since I knew by this time that the central panel would be where the greens would end up.









I loved my three pages, so it took some resolution to make the cuts with the Cabinet Card die.  But I figured I could always remake them if I hated them once cut!

At first, I thought Umbrella Man (cut from one of my WOYWW experimental tags: TH's wrinkle free distress technique done with Distress Paints, then inked for shading.  Love how the paint gives a resist effect with the ink!) would go at the rainy end, and the flowers with the sunshine...


But I realised it made the colours pop far more if I reversed it - and anyway, the whole point of the quote is that you need both sun and rain together...









And then I needed a die-cut for the central panel too - the flourish seemed ideal as a symbol of flourishing, colourful life...







Everything is mounted on padded tape to make it pop a little further, including all the words - some pretty fiddly tape cutting and sticking (especially under the flourish).

Some of the flowers are on double layers, to give three different levels of dimension over the embossing.  The attachers have had a little dose of Quinacridone Gold transparent acrylic paint for some added sunshine.









So, with the padded tape and popping contrasting colours, I'm also going to offer this up as another entry over at this month's Add a Little Pop challenge at the Inspiration Journal.

The final step was to dye some crinkle ribbon to fit in with the rainbow sweep across the panels... so the first pair are a combination of Scattered Straw and Shabby Shutters, and the second pair of Peacock Feathers, Broken China and Tumbled Glass - the colours either side of the divides.














There's still time to play along in the House of Bears challenge (as well as both the others of course!)... and as you can see, there's no need to have read the book to join in!!

Thanks so much for dropping by today (especially if you've been twice). Looking forward to hopping round to see what you've all been up to... Happy Crafting!



Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow." And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

I'd like to enter this in the following:
The House of Bears literary challenge based on A Thousand Splendid Suns
Quotable at Simon Says Stamp and Show
Add a Little Pop at the Inspiration Journal
With its hint of April showers, I'd like to add it as a third and final entry to the current Vintage Stamping Challenge, sponsored by Flonzcraft which is Spring is in the Air
And with the quote leading how this project was created, it also goes into the current Rogue Redheads challenge which has a Sentimental Focus