At the Worktable with the Grungy Halloween Owl Tags
There is something wonderfully contradictory about spending so much time making something new look as though it has already lived a very long life.
That was certainly the case with these little owl tags.
They began with old book pages — not one layer, but four, folded and glued together to give each tag some substance. From there, I started building the surface little by little: ink around the edges, modeling and crackle paste worked through stencils, and layers of alcohol ink that settled into all those raised and uneven places.
And somewhere along the way, they stopped looking like pieces I had just made at my worktable.
They began to look found.
That is always one of my favorite moments.
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The Beauty Is in the Layers
When I make something grungy or timeworn, I don't really want the aging to look like decoration sitting on top of the paper. I want it to feel as though it happened there.
A darkened edge by itself can make paper look older. But add a little texture, a crack running through the surface, color caught unevenly in the crevices, a loose thread and a piece of ragged fabric, and suddenly there is a history that wasn't there before.
Of course, we know that history is imaginary.
But isn't that part of the fun?
These tags were made in four different finishes — Weathered Stone, Haunted Verdigris, Faded Ledger, and Rust & Ruin — and although they began the same way, the layers gave each pair its own personality.
And Then Came the Owls
Each set has two owls, one orange and one black, tucked into little nests of black thread.
I could have stopped there.
Naturally, I didn't.
There are torn pieces of coffee-dyed fabric and cheesecloth, tiny metal fasteners and all of those deliberately imperfect edges and surfaces that make me want to pick something up and look a little closer.
The backs are finished with coffee-dyed writing paper, because I wanted these to remain useful tags rather than becoming purely decorative pieces. There is still room for a name, a note, a bit of journaling or whatever story their eventual owner decides they should carry.
And I think that may be what I like most about making pieces like these.
I can give them the beginning of a story, but I don't have to give them the ending.
From the Hidden Drawer
The finished owl tags have now found their way into The Hidden Drawer, which seems like exactly the right place for them.
They look a little weathered, a little mysterious and perhaps as though somebody tucked them away years ago and forgot about them.
Except, of course, I know better.
I remember the book pages.
I remember the glue.
I remember the paste and the ink and the threads and all the layers that came before those wonderfully grungy little owls finally looked as though they had been waiting years to be found.
Sometimes making something old begins with making something new.
And then you just have to give it a little history.
Until next time,
Colleen
Butterfly in the Attic
