“Pur ti miro” inspired bookmark

This bookmark was inspired by “Pur ti miro” from L’Incoronazione Di Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi.
I love Christina Pluhar’s version with Philippe Jaroussky and Nuria Rial above any others that I’ve listened to.

This is the process I followed, I think the pictures are pretty much self explanatory:
I used a red piece of bond paper and a stylographic pen to copy the score from a video.

Then cut it in half

Since I had some room at the bottom I turned that part into a paper cut-out. I think it’s befitting of this song’s light, delicate and intricate lace-like patterns and it tries to emulate the beauty and complexity of it’s interpretation, in a very humble way. First I traced the heart with a burin to give me an idea of its size and where to place the birds but figured out the design as it went along.

There was a lot of cutting involved which took me hours, but you can see it here in just a few seconds:

Voilá!

I started applying a little acrylic & tempera paint to it with paintbrushes.

And went on to painting some flowers over the score,

I stitched acetate around it to protect it and sew crocheting yarn on the top to make a tassel.

I left the tissue paper that comes with the acetate on the outside at the bottom

so the sewing machine’s ‘teeth’ wouldn’t scratch it as it pulled it.

Removed the unneeded acetate

Placed it in a notebook so the acetate would remain perfectly shiny, and left the yarn hanging out to start weaving the tassel.

Weaved a first row with beads, it started out a little bit like Macramé or a friendship bracelet

weaved some more

and some more

and some beads hanging from each tassel.

It’s signed on the back:

Does it look and sound easy? It took me 20 hours to complete it!
I will add it to my Etsy Shop today, it will be my first item ever! :)
Here are some pictures of the finished bookmark that are not on Etsy: