Memories of grandpa

7/14/12 There are few things I remember from my childhood, but one thing that sticks in my mind is of my grandfather playing the piano and singing to me. When I would stay over, he would sit at the piano and play until I fell asleep. I now have all his old sheet music and am overjoyed!

The problem with the old music is that is smelled...BAD! It had been sitting in a box in the garage for years. I brought it all home and began my project. There were so many sheets of music, old newspapers, and pieces of paper with lyrics written on them.

The first step was to go through all the music and see what pieces I wanted to use. I am thinking of making a collage of pieces of music and some of the hand written lyrics that I found. I'm also thinking of framing some of the covers as art work. So I was looking for songs that I remember him singing or covers that had interesting pictures...or maybe colors that I liked. There were so many to go through....

The next step was to start treating it. From everything I found on the internet of how to get rid of mildew smells, baking soda was the way to go. I started layering baking soda between sheets of music. It took a few rounds of treatment before the smell started to go away.  The last step was hanging the pieces out in the air to get rid of any lingering smells.

The other great part of this project is having a custom frame made from old wood we also found in the chicken coop. I took some of the pieces I found over to my father-in-law to see if he could make me a frame. I bought a frame from Goodwill so I could use the glass but as I was sliding it out of danger in the garage I ended up chipping off a chunk of the glass...so I will have to go out and buy glass for it afterall once the frame is done.

8/15/12 I'm so excited! My father-in-law finished the frame I had him make out of the wood you see above. I had to run and have some glass cut and then put together my collage. I have lots more music treated that I want to use for smaller projects but here is the completed collage frame.