Calico Joy Hanging

Encore Posts

I'm away again for a month or so.  There are some scheduled posts with new creations coming your way, but I'm also taking the chance to do some catching up here at Words and Pictures.   Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

I'm so glad you enjoyed my Mini Marvels and the Love This Life journal.  I'm on scheduled  Design Team posts and Encores at the moment, and so there may be a delay before I can pay some return visits... but I'm always grateful for your lovely comments.

So much has changed at Calico since this post was written that I've had to amend or remove some links.  The company has now been reinvented as Calico Craft Parts and, though I do miss some of the eclectic stock they used to have available, I think the range of high-quality MDF and wood cuts they now offer is simply fantastic.  So, where appropriate, I've linked to those new Calico products, but otherwise you'll have to go searching for the supplies involved here.  Here's (pretty much) what I wrote back in September 2014.

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Hello all! Thanks so much for stopping by. Apologies that my offering is late this month - my laptop collapsed on me - but I'm happy to be able to share it with you now. I've a simple rustic make for you today - a little driftwood hanging with colours starting to turn towards the burnished golds of autumn.

This make was inspired by the Calico Craft Parts Alphabets and Numbers which are now available in several different fonts.  Sadly this was a last-minute inspiration, and I didn't get around to ordering my letters in time to use them on this before I left, so I used some die-cut letters instead - but this is exactly what I plan to do with some Calico letters as soon as I'm back in the UK.

If you saw my Woodcuts ATC a couple of weeks ago, you'll know I've been having fun covering Craft Parts with book pages, and that's the look I went for here. The paper I used was from the Kaisercraft Timeless Collection, and I inked up the edges for an extra distressed look.

The words are mounted on three of the Driftwood Planks, which each had a dash of DecoArt Warm White paint so that the lettering would pop a bit more.

The touch of autumn gold comes from the Sun Daisies, a combination of White, Yellow and Golden Yellow flowers. They've also had a touch of Warm White for a shabby chic look.

I couldn't resist adding a few coils of Rusty Tin Wire to the mix...

And that reminded me that I still had some of the Miniature Grapevine Hearts, which also have rusty wire curled around them.
I added a couple of those as an extra feature.

The whole thing is strung together with some rustic Jute Twine, and I used strong masking tape to hold it in place on the back of each driftwood plank.

And that's it... I hope you like my joyful driftwood hanging, and it's hopefully not the last of the summer sunshine!
See you again soon.

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So that's our little trip down memory lane for today.  I hope there's at least some autumnal sunshine coming your way.  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again soon.

We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.
Buddha