The Cards

 Here are the Christmas cards that I made this year.  The best laid plans and all that.  I wanted a vintage looking card.  I bought the wrong cards...they were like a postcard with an envelope...oh well.  

I stamped them on the back

Then I created the front of the card on the homemade watercolor cotton paper.  

It was a process; the top card is the background, at the left trees are added and at the right I stamped Merry Christmas. 

Then it was time for the gouache...I had never used it before...but it makes great snow.  

Boy did it snow...on the cards, on the table and on me...it was a wild time. 

After the gouache was dry I glued the card to the cardstock and weighed it down...the first batch was a mess...too much glue and I had snow all over the backs of the cards....little white dots all over!  I was not happy luckily I solved that problem by using wax paper between the cards...well wouldn't you know it ...that trapped the moisture from the glue.  Trial and error...what finally worked was using less glue and wrapping each card in a Kleenex and then weighing them down.  

When you have no idea what in the world you were doing it all takes some trial and error.  

Yes all the cards are similar but different...some have more trees and some trees are tall and skinny and some are big and fat...kinda like trees in real life.  

I ordered special address labels...of get this... trees...it would be perfect.  Well those labels went back and forth stuck on a truck that kept circling between Brooklyn Park Minnesota and West Fargo North Dakota for 23 DAYS.  Go figure I finally said "enough" I will use those address labels next year and used some generic not pretty at all labels.  On the way to the Post Office to do the mailing we stopped at our mail box and guess what was there?  If you guessed my labels with trees that were ever so pretty you would be correct. 

All is well that ends well.  126 cards were mailed. 

Far Side