Wire - I love it!

This summer a lovely new shop opened here in Greenwich called Papillon and it takes all my restraint not to visit every day and buy pretty much everything.
It's a gorgeous collection of quilting fabrics, felt, yarns, roving, buttons (oh the buttons!), ribbon (even more amazing than the buttons), lace (see ribbons comment), wire, wood, threads, books and more I'm sure that I'm forgetting....

On my first visit (about 10 minutes after it opened on the first day) I bought a lovely fabric stack and some wire.  I didn't really know what I was going to do with the wire - but the book (which I also bought) had some lovely ideas.

I started with a simple project -  making these cute fabric and wire flowers.  The most difficult bit was figuring out how I was going to make them stand up on their own.  I made and painted the little boxes out of card - but they were too light and the flowers kept toppling over.  How could I weight the boxes?  I pondered and pondered and finally the penny dropped.  Pennies!!  I glued 3 pennies together, stuck them in the bottom of the boxes and heh presto - standing flowers!


My second wire project was a bit more elaborate - but I really loved the result.

I made the wire heart shape and then added the beads, buttons and ribbons to decorate.  The wings were made using white linen (an old shirt in fact) that I randomly stamped on to with a large Tim Holtz stamp from a set called (coincidentally) Papillon.

Because I think everything is better with words I stamped a sentiment onto torn plain card, inked it up a bit and then covered  it with clear embossing powder.   I attached the tag to the heart with an antique coloured screw brad.  

'She only flew when no one could see' is my favourite sentiment stamp at the moment.As I said to Gen and her sisters - I have no idea what it is supposed to mean but somehow it speaks to me.