The Start of a Tradition

Hello there to you all...

I had meant to post these photos AGES ago and never did.

My sister-in-law and her two amazing daughters and I had made a decision this past Christmas that we would try to exchange some hand-made gifts. I knew immediately what I wanted to do. 

I love all things vintage...from furniture to clothes and most especially anything to do with Christmas. 

I decided to try to make those amazing little houses that were so popular ages ago. I have always loved them but although I have seen lots of photos of them, I have never had an opportunity to buy one. So I have made them.

To accomplish this I have used the Papertrey Ink Tiny Town dies. I also decided that this would be the start of an annual tradition so that everyone will get a new building each year until I think we all have enough houses and then that will be that. :)

This year I made the basic house dwelling. 7 of my friends and family got these little houses and I made one for myself as well as you will see here.

My dear sister Mary and a couple of my friends got houses all in white. I have mounted them on artist board and I signed and dated each one along with recipients name. The entire house is covered in glitter and I adhered a couple wee trees purchased at Michaels along with some cotton batten snow.

After making the white ones I thought perhaps I should try some in different colours. I first tried just changing the colour of the glitter but that did not really work well. Back to the drawing board and I eventually watercoloured the houses before adding the clear glitter. I should mention that for more stability I used heavy watercolour paper for all the house construction.

This next one for my sweet niece Hannah was done is blues and pinks.

This next one for my wonderful niece and fellow dog lover Charlotte done is golds and soft reds.

After I had made this lot I began to get a bit more adventurous and decided to try to make my little houses look like the actual houses my friends lived in.

A wonderful woman who is the mom of one of my very dear friends and who actually shares the same birth date as my own mother (and she lets me call her Mumsy) lives is a lovely white house with blue shutters and black roof so this became her little house.

And the daughter of Mumsy and her family live in a log home that her hubby built all by himself. He is an amazing craftsman. Here is their home, complete with red front door and green metal roof. I must confess that it was a good bit of work cutting out and sticking on all those little logs.

And lastly we have the little house that I made for myself. Mine is all in white. Mine also has different coloured trees as I had to go with what I could find at Michaels. I bought up all that they had in green trees but will need more for next year. I thought I would show you all four sides of the house so you can see that there are windows all the way round. The other change to my house is it occurred to me to put something in the windows. I used a piece of acetate which I coloured up with a deep yellow Copic so it will look like the warm glow inside a house on a Winters eve. Too late now for the other ones as I did not think of that in time.

So there you have it. I absolutely adore the Tiny Town and hope to purchase some more of the building additions to make more little houses to continue this tradition next year.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful day. Cheers.

  ~  Melanie  ~