I'm a bit rusty.....

This weekend sees the final posting of cards for Postmans's Knock. When the 12 of us started in April I thought this date seemed a long way off but it has come round with amazing speed. My last card came from Jane, the recipient of my first effort all those months ago. She has introduced me to the poetry of George Herbert who straddled the period from the end of Elizabeth 1's reign through to his death under a Stuart king. She has chosen the words and format of 'Easter Wings' to respond to my theme of Taking Flight. Now I have a collection of 11 very different cards and that is what has been so intriguing about the whole project. Everyone has put such effort into the making of their cards. Speaking personally, I have enjoyed it all immensely. I really had fun trying to come up with something appropriate every time but I always knew the final card would be tough. Sue's 'rust' theme seemed to have people scratching their heads so I got a bit nervous about it even though she is a real chum and I know better than to worry what she will think of my stuff. After all, she has seen enough of it over the years!

I started by looking for a quote and thought I'd hit the big time when I found these words from the Bible - 'Lay not treasures up for yourself on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt....' as Sue is an acknowledged lover of 'the dark side' of lepidoptera. They feature large in her own work so I started by rusting strips of paper using a card alphabet to create resists. I intended to make a small accordion book with the quote running through it but the resists fell all over the place so I abandoned the above piece and tried to think of something else.

Next, I rusted some slide mounts that I stapled together and I printed the quote onto acetate which I sandwiched in between. I cut the small moths from a sheet of copper shim and rusted them as best I could and put it all together. I was happy with it but I am my own worst critic and still did not feel as if my ideas had pulled together into something right for Sue so I thought again about the moths. As a frequent moth trapper I know my moths quite well so I started thinking about using one of them. - perhaps the Iron Prominent or the Rusty Wave? Nothing came together and then I had one of those lightbulb moments. What if I just make up a moth........

So, that's what I did, creating the Rusty Brown for Mrs Brown. I looked through the 'bible' I use to verify my traps and took the headings as a starting point. All the things above are just made up. They probably only mean something to Sue because I tried to make my offering very personal as she has been a great friend to me in recent years. I loved making it and it all came together in about an hour or so. Sometimes I need to remember that less is more and the simplest ideas are often the best ones!

With that, Postman's Knock is over. Please head over to the blog to see the final cards getting posted. I feel a bit like Steve Redgrave. Remember that quote about shooting him if he ever got into a boat again.... well, if anyone ever suggests a collaboration like this again...... hey, who am I kidding. I'll be the first to put my hand up!