Two more pages for Cris's Christmas book

I'm still helping my neighbor with her basement, and I sincerely hope we get it finished soon. I still want to take photos of my house, but I don't seem to be home whenever it's light outside. This neighborly gesture has into a full time job.

This page started with a Dover image that I wanted to use of a woman in a 50s dress. I printed this image in California in June. I began with another USPS freebie: a "hold mail" request. These are perfect because they are exactly the right size. Next came the inside of a security envelope, then a recipe from a magazine, then the image.

In hindsight , I should have angled the recipe the other direction so I could have put the woman on the left. However, when I tried to put her on the left after I'd glued the recipe, she hid most of the picture and title.

This is also a magazine image, but I once again didn't get enough glue on the file folder substrate, so the image buckled. Next time, I'm going to try applying the glue stick directly to the magazine image to see if that helps.

In order to try to jazz it up a bit, I got out my Heidi Swapp/Tim Holtz masks and tried to use a couple on this page, swiping the mask with Antique Linen distress ink. I either did something wrong, or I should have used a darker ink, but I was really disappointed with the outcome I got using these masks. Oh well, live and learn, I guess. I have to admit, this is probably my least favorite page so far.

To make matters even worse, what happens when you have the two pages side by side? You get the sentiments reversed. The first one with the woman was supposed to have the "loves great food," while the cookies was to have the "loves to cook." After I noticed it, the glue had dried enough that I couldn't peel them off.

Cost for the two above? Glue, copy paper, and printer ink.