Whispers & Words Wall Art Review

I will soon be giving birth to a set of twin girls, which means that I have the wondrously fun job of designing a beautiful, feminine, and of course pink, nursery. I knew from all my time perusing Pinterest that I wanted to have some sort of written word on my baby girl’s walls.  I found several companies that made such wall décor but their prices were outrageous! I also knew that I wanted custom designs with words that meant a lot to my husband and I; words that we would want to speak over our daughter’s lives time and time again. I even toyed with the idea of making these art pieces myself. The truth is, in my heart I am Martha Stewart, but in reality I cannot cut, sew or draw a straight line. So DIY for this was out!

One day, as fate would have it, I came across an adorable Etsy shop called Whispers & Words. The shop and its creations are owned and created by Carrie Mansfield, who also runs a blog under the same title. According to her blog, “… Carrie Mansfield [is a] self-proclaimed lover of travel, cuddly babies, international cuisine, the sound of the rain and the smell of the ocean.  When Carrie is not writing out her thoughts on Whispers & Words, she spends most of her free time working as a social worker, spending time with family and friends and coming up with alterations to favorite recipes in the kitchen.” Doesn’t she just sound so interesting and crafty? Here is a snippet from her blog about why she creates this art, “My hope is that this art never becomes trivial to me or to my buyers. My hope is that, like in our home, these pieces would speak encouragement, hope and light into the places they reside. And above all, as with everything, I hope that this shop is a reflection of my even greater dream…to honor and glorify God with my heart, my mind, my speech and the work of my hands.”

I visited the Whispers and Words Etsy shop and found some lovely handcrafted creations. What I really love is that everything has a personal touch; it isn’t copy and paste work. If you scroll past the available pieces you will see a link to request a custom order. Yep, that was for me! When I spoke to Carrie about creating three custom pieces for my twin girls new nursery she was very helpful! She asked what I wanted but also made suggestions to me, which I appreciated! Carrie has kept in touch with me throughout her process and allowed me to give input, and the work was done quickly.

I actually got to ask the artist about her process; I mean whoever gets to ask the artist this? And this is what she said, “…the beauty of the designs is that the process can change from piece to piece. As someone with an artistic bent, I've found over the years that I really hate doing the same thing over and over. With Whispers and Words I have the consistency of a concept (canvas designs that feature words and sayings that are meaningful to the buyer) along with the freedom to create images to go along with those words... I am inspired by scripture, music and quotes that evoke further inspiration or contemplation. Once I find the quote or lyric, an image or several images usually come to mind. I then look for photographs or other artwork of those images and then get to work on creating my own. I do most of the process freehand and use a number of other art tools to tweak and manipulate until it is as close to what is in my mind as it can be. As for custom pieces, I try to collect as much information as I can from the buyer to get them what they are looking for…Often people come to me for custom work because they have a beautiful image in mind but they just don't know how it could ever become tangible…”

                                 

You can purchase any Whispers and Words art through their Etsy site. You can also contact the artist and stay current on exciting news, giveaways and pieces via their Facebook page and Blog.