Friday Smiles 351 and much more: what made me smile this week

I'm foregoing the Eisenhower museum again this week in favor of talking about what made me smile.  I got one of the BIGGEST compliments ever, and have to share it with Annie (at A Stitch in Time) and the wonderful ladies at Friday Smiles. Of course, I'll be sharing it with my loyal readers, followers, lurkers, and the wonderful mixed media group Try it on Tuesday, too.  Since there are both words and numbers on these tip-ins, which are 5.5 X 8.5 inches (13,97 X  21,59 centimeters), I'm joining Yvonne at Art Journal Journey, too.

I made 12 tip-ins this year.  Most of them went to my international friends.  Now that all but two of these have been received, I want to share them with you.  Four went out as soon as I made them, because I wanted my international friends to get theirs as soon as possible.  Many of you saw the quick and easy cards I made this year, but if you didn't they are here.

You can see I stamped this side using one of the lovely landscape stamps I won from Aussie Annie.  Granted, I'm not a stamper and you will see that I made a mistake in each and every one of these trees I stamped.

I also can see mistakes I made on the front side, too, BUT I have to share the compliment I received from my dear friend Chris at Pear Shaped Crafting.  Most of my readers know Chris and how well she stamps.  She uses everything from clear to rubber UMs to rubber on wooden blocks.  She is a stamping queen in my estimation.  Most everything she makes, she uses stamps that always have perfect stamping.

Imagine my surprise when I received this message from her about receiving her tip-in:

Your lovely Tip-in arrived while we were away but I was feeling so poorly that I didn’t get around to letting you know how impressed I am with your stamping and embossing!

Like I said, what a fabulous compliment!  Especially coming from the Queen of Stamping herself!

For these tip-ins, I began by laying down one of my favorite background techniques onto 110 lb cardstock.  I added six drops of gray Staz-on reinker to a nearly full tiny take-out cup filled with 91% Isopropyl alcohol. I used a foam brush to brush the mixture on the page.  I made the mixture lighter than normal, so the background is uncharacteristically subtle for my usual tip-in backgrounds.

Once dry, which takes less than a minute, I printed the sentiment using my software and laser printer.  Each page made two tip-ins, so I cut them using my guillotine paper cutter.

First, I stamped the trees on the sentiment side using a dark green dye ink.  Then I stamped the front side using VersaMark.  I had two green embossing powders, and started with the lightest.  Since I wasn't sure I liked how light they turned out, I changed to the darker color.  I also stamped the envelopes for the tip-ins you see here using the same Santa collage stamp I used on my Christmas cards.
 
Now let's see what others are smiling about this Friday.  Please don't forget to start your weekend off right by visiting Annie for a few Friday Smiles.  Bleubeard and I would love to have you join us there as well as Try it on Tuesday and Art Journal Journey, too.

Edit: It's Feed Me Friday at Free Kibble.  See my right sidebar and click to answer a question about dogs and one about cats.  Right or wrong, you have now donated 5X the normal amount of kibble to pets in shelters and where needed.