I pulled the pail filled with recyclables out of the back of the car. Jon took the bundle of cardboard. By the time I got back to the car, Bob, who works at the dump, had already emptied the garbage pail. He went to get a dog biscuit for Fate and asked me if I ever used felt in my work.
“I have two boxes of pieces of felt” he said.
Now I don’t usually use felt in my work, and told him so, but I was also curious to see what he had put aside for me instead of tossing it in the trash.
The box was marked Large Bible Story File /Box One of Two. It was not what I expected and when I opened it up I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Angels and frogs and lions and donkeys and trees. Men and women dressed in robes, Egyptian statues, tombstones, crowns, tents, stone structures and images that, well, I guess you have to know the Bible story in order for them to make sense.
Basically a treasure chest (two really) of inspiration that set my mind spinning.
Do I know how I’ll use these? I have an idea. What first comes to mind is using them on my large wall hangings, that I make from old quilts. How else will I use them? I have no idea, not at the moment, but I know something new will come of them.
I don’t think I ever talked to Bob about my work, so I certainly didn’t expect him to be saving something like this for me. But I’m so glad he did. Makes me wonder if Bob knows all his customers better than we know him and often saves things for them instead of throwing them out. Somehow, I wouldn’t doubt it.
Beautiful, can’t wait to see how you use them!
You’re making me want to visit my transfer station. I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with these.
This makes me smile. What a wonderful find.
That’s so cool, I’ll bet you can find lots of uses for those images – good for Bob! I go to our local dump every week and they have a policy that you can’t take anything out of there; if it’s junk, it gets tossed – and you wouldn’t believe sometimes the nice furniture even that gets thrown out (I always wonder why not give it away roadside or to the Rescue Mission – must be mad at an ex?) Anyway, I’ve collected shells forever and one day this man right next to me tossed a huge white conch shell onto the conveyor belt and I said “you’re throwing that out?! Are you Nuts?! I’ll take it!? And the operator said to me well, I don’t see anything, so I jumped down and grabbed it – big old conch shells look awesome as garden art, so that’s where I put that one. Treasure is wherever you find it, right? Have a good week! 🙂
What a strange policy, not to let people take things from the dump. It would be so much better than the landfill or incinerating it. But I’m how nice you got to save the conch shell. It just seems wrong to me to throw a shell out.
I went to Vacation Bible School at my church in the summer as a child. I remember being taught Bible stories and the teacher would stand at an easel and place these felt character on a felt background and tell the story with them. I’m sure that’s where these came from. Funny, I never believed those stories.
I figured they came from a Sunday School Becky. Interesting how seeing them made you remember that you didn’t believe the stories. I imagine it was just expected that you would.
Felt pieces are beautiful. Prime colors so vivid. Lucky you for obtaining them.