Love is in the air

... or is it?  Hello all and welcome.  It's challenge time.

The amazing Astrid is our host this fortnight at A Vintage Journey and, according to the challenge theme, Love Is In The Air!

As usual, my wonderful team-mates have come up with a wealth of inspiration for you, all with a Tim Holtz twist (we certainly all love Tim Holtz at any rate!), but before you hop off to check it out, here's my offering for you.

And love is in the air... but it's under considerable pressure, I'm afraid.

I thought I would use an old hardback book cover as my substrate.  I have a bunch of them, removed and preserved from disintegrating books during our big house move just over a year ago.

I happened to pull this one out of the shelf, and was delighted to find that, unusually, there was some ephemera on the inside leaf... and that inspired the direction I took with the piece.






The book was a copy of Six Months in Red Russia, by Louise Bryant, first published in 1918.  She was an American journalist who spent time in Russia before and during the revolution.  (If you've seen the film Reds, partly based on her writings, she's played by Diane Keaton.)














On the inside cover there's a Russian letter - a permit to travel, according to the blurb underneath - the perfect ephemera to provide a background for this pair from the Idea-ology Found Relatives (I've just re-appropriated it from Louise Bryant and re-written it in their names - in my head, that is, not actually!).

Suddenly they started to talk to me...







Here they are... a young Russian couple, caught up in the maelstrom of events.  The arranged marriage had to take place in a hurry to allow the two of them to travel together out of the country, to try to find a safe refuge from the turmoil.

The young man is filled with the excitement of the adventure, optimistic about the future and what it holds.  His slightly older bride looks considerably more wary, unsure about the wisdom of what they're doing.










The book page hearts echo the letters in the background, but the crackle and rusty wire perhaps show that all is not simple and straightforward between these two.










They have a long and dangerous journey ahead of them, even with the letters permitting them to travel through the country and across the border.














You have to wonder how much it cost their respective families to get those letters signed, and who they had to bribe for the travel tickets.










Although she has now committed her life to her new husband, and they must depend upon one another, obviously she still thinks about the family she has left behind.

Her thoughts are bound up in the letters she writes, never knowing if they will reach their destination.

She has brought mementos from home: a piece of her childhood bedroom wallpaper, snipped from behind the headboard of the bed, so nobody will notice it's gone; a portion of the lace her mother so carefully chose to adorn the wedding dress - already torn and stained with travel.

The dress itself had to be left behind - there's no room in the luggage they carry for anything but absolute necessities.









His constant urging is that she should look on the bright side, encourage her hopes not her fears.

He has promised to take care of her, to cherish her, and he will find a way to do that however far from home they have to travel.












I hope the distressed state of the book board is not a sign that their marriage is already fraying around the edges...













I hope that he is right to indulge in his high hopes for the days, months and years stretching out ahead of them...











I hope that love will strengthen them as they journey together through the world and through their lifetime together...

I hope...

(You may have noticed in the past that Valentine's Day is rarely pink and fluffy round here at Words and Pictures!!)








In any case, I do hope this hanging has offered you some inspiration for the challenge.  Do hop over to see what my team-mates have been creating for you, and we'd love to have you join us for this leg of the journey now that Love Is In The Air.

Check out all the challenge details as well as our Travelling Instructions to make sure you qualify for the prize voucher, generously sponsored by Country View Crafts.



Apologies that I'm somewhat missing in action again at the moment - it's a busy start to the year work-wise and crafting-wise, and there's the dreaded tax return still hovering.  I hope to be back visiting very soon.  Would so much rather come and see you all than do my tax return!!

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word is spoken.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Circumstances define us; they force us on to one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
Ivan Turgenev

All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.
Leo Tolstoy

I'm entering the lovely Choose Your Challenge at Craft Hoarders Anonymous - they have a chart and you need to include one ingredient from each list on your project. So I have Colouring Medium - Ink, Fibre - Lace, Technique - Die-cutting, Texture - Distressing and Wire, Embellishing - Eyelets and Ephemera
I'd also like to enter this at The Inspiration Journal where they are looking for A Fresh Start... a January anything goes, really.
And at Anything But A Card they are looking for New Beginnings, and since this Russian couple really are looking for a fresh start, it seems right!