Erosion Bundles - One year later!

Last September, I started an Erosion Bundle" project.  I gathered various ephemera, such as pages from old books, art papers, cardboard, and book covers, and wired them together in bundles.  I wrapped one of the bundles in a piece of muslin.  Then I hung them outside on my deck to be deteriorated by the elements.  Here's what they looked like last year:





I could hardly wait for things to happen, and actually, I don't believe anything happened for months.  But winter came and we got rain and snow.  And finally, one year had past and I could open the packages and see what nature had done.  Here is what one packet looked like before I took it apart:

And here is what the two bundles look like now that they have been taken apart.  There is a lot of mold/mildew on the papers and also some tiny insects, so I haven't brought them into the house yet.  I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to store them.  If anyone has ideas, I'd appreciate suggestions.

And today, I did my first art project with one piece of eroded ephemera.  Because the paper was still a little damp, I used a hot iron to press it between two sheets of paper before I started to work with it.  When I was finished, I sprayed it with a fixative to keep the mold from dispersing any more into my environment.

The drawing is after Picasso, and the idea of drawing with ink on old book pages/music came from an exhibition of Robert Kushner's work that I saw last week at the Huntington Gallery of Art.