My Christmas tip-ins

Each year for the past six years, I've made tip-ins for my dear altered art friends. This year was no different, except this year I added hand dyed fabric to the mix.
I began by adding squares and rectangles to completely cover the white card stock substrait on the front side. Then I sponged blue and beige glaze on the top half using a sea sponge. This is that same blue and beige glaze I have been using for several weeks. Now you know where it came from!! When dry, I brushed a green and beige glaze on the bottom.

Next I hand dyed muslin using printer ink. When dry, I ironed the pieces and sewed them together. Next I chewed the roof shapes as best I could using scissors that are never sharp. Finally, I added the Dover clip art to the house and ironed the assembly to the page.

Then I was stuck. So, when my friend Halle called, I talked to her and came up with the rest of the design.
I printed "From" and "house," along with "to" and "house" on ledger paper because my handwriting sucks. Then I used my Dymo label maker and printed "my" and "your." Originally, I was going to use more yellow material for the chimney, then decided on the ledger paper instead. For a final touch, I used a date stamp to print the "address."

For the back side, I cut an oval mask to cover the printer ink that I had sprayed with a protective fixative. I sponged green paint all over the back, then cut a tree template I used for the two trees (includes the one that wraps around to the front). Next I stamped (yep, you read right) the date and the holly on the tree.

The mask finally fell apart and I ended up just sponging lightly over the words I had previously printed. All in all, these took nearly two weeks to finish, but I was happy with them when I mailed them right after Thanksgiving. That means everyone (with the possible exception of friends in Canada) should have theirs by now.

Click on any photo to enlarge.