The Silence Between

Hello everyone; hope you're all having a great week!  It's my birthday today, so I decided to indulge myself in catching up with one of my favourite projects.

I was so excited to be invited to Guest Design for Calico Crafts on their blog in February, but I only gave a sneak peek of the projects here at Words and Pictures.

I've caught up with one of them, but it's time to get add the other to my full collection here.  I use this blog like a virtual scrapbook of my work, so it feels important to get them all "under one roof".  So, forgive me if you've seen this before...

I love the eclectic mix of products Calico Crafts offer - so much inspiration just from the crafty stash.

The first piece I created for them was a hanging created out of unassuming beer mats, rusty metal and bits of driftwood.  I love the sense of "found objects" being turned into something beautiful ... well, I think it's beautiful - I hope you like it too!

I started by covering the beer mats with the large Vintage Collage Sheet called Principles of Music (sadly not available at the moment, but there are lots of others to choose from).  I love music manuscript and notation, so this huge sheet of old musical principles and rules really delights me.

Once the mats were covered, I sanded the edges for a more distressed look, and then added some gesso with rough brushstrokes to weather them even further.

I stamped some of the gorgeous hedgerow grasses from the Artemio Wild Summer Meadow set randomly across the three beer mats, and added the rusted hearts.  

I arranged the mats on my craft table in the order I thought looked best, and adjusted the position of the hearts until I was happy with how it all looked.

I got some of the small driftwood sticks and lined them up in between the mats to check that the idea I'd had was actually going to look okay before I started getting twiddly with the rusty wire.  I also gave them a couple of sweeps of gesso for fun!

I punched holes in the beermats and then started threading the whole thing together, making sure to leave enough length in the wire for doing some curly wurly stuff at the ends.

I stamped the quote - which, I should of course tell you, is a thought of Mozart's - and cut them up, inking the edges.  

I attached them using padded tape, for extra dimension, inserting a bit of metal mesh behind the most significant words to highlight them. 

And that was pretty much that... a fairly simple make, but one that really pleases me.  I'd love to know what you think, though please don't feel you have to leave a comment if you did last time!

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.
Edith Sitwell

True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.
William Penn


Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb.
Pythagoras

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by.  If you've never been there, it's well worth visiting the Calico Crafts blog for lots of lovely inspiration, as well of course as the online store for lots of lovely shopping!  Happy crafting!

Ingredients from Calico Crafts - click to go straight there:

Large Vintage Collage Sheets

Beermats

Artemio Wild Summer Meadow Clear Stamp Set

Rusty Hearts (small and medium)

Rusty Wire

Driftwood Sticks (small)

Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso