Even tinier houses!

Hello all!  Since we're all pretty much confined to quarters at the moment, I've got a post celebrating our houses and homes.

I shared some tiny houses at the start of the month (officially so - the die used to create my Useful or Beautiful houses is called "Tiny Houses"), but compared to these, those were actually pretty big.  Today's houses are really teeny tiny ones, located on a quartet of ATCs.

There were quite a few prompts behind this creation... first the fact that we're all spending much more time at home just now; then there's the Little Things theme at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog coupled with a Home Sweet Home theme at Try It on Tuesday; it was also Mothering Sunday, so this quartet of houses was destined for dollshouse-loving Cestina; and finally, it was another chance to get out my new PaperArtsy House & Home quotes and play.

And in fact they started by themselves, before I'd even thought about them... these were the mop-up/overflow tags for my It's Patina Time tag. 














Every bit of leftover smooshing ink or Oxide made its way onto these tags, either smooshed or splattered.















I thought I'd play along at the FJB by cutting my two tags into four ATCs.






They weren't quite big enough to make the full 3.5 x 2.5 inch sizing, so I cut up a cardboard box to make proper ATC-sized mounts for them.

I didn't want the trimmings to go to waste (they could have been wider than 2.5, but weren't tall enough for 3.5 - that's why there are trimmings for anyone worried about the maths!) so I played about with adding them to the composition.







This was the point at which the idea to use the little houses popped into my head.















They're from one of those cheap woodcut sets you can sometimes pick up at places like The Range, and I'd bought them ages ago.














Thankfully, I was able to lay hands on them amidst the chaos of my hoarded craft supplies.














They've had a couple of coats of Snowflake Fresco paint, and they're grounded onto the background with a wash of Payne's Grey.














Each of the quotes comes from PaperArtsy EAB15 House & Home, from the most recent launch of my word stamps.














They're stamped in Garden Patina Archival Ink, which tones in nicely with the verdigris blotches in the background.














In fact, it seems to have colour variation built in to the pad - sometimes it's slightly bluer, sometimes slightly greener as you stamp.













I've not noticed that about it before, so maybe mine's just "gone off".  If so, I'm delighted - I love the slight shifts in shade.















I liked the simple wooden houses, but the ATCs needed a little something extra.  Time for another rummage through the stash...














These wooden stars seemed just right to provide a touch more detail and another white accent.














Well, they were white once they'd also had some Snowflake paint added to them, at least.













I ended up whitewashing the rugged corrugated cardboard in the background too - and roughing it up some more with my scissor blades for a nice distressed look.














I also did some scraping of the edges of all the tag pieces to give them some more texture.

















That was fine on the larger background panels, but more than a little tricky when it came to the tiny decorative strips.  My thumbs have lost their top layer of skin from getting scraped!

















Worth it though, I think.  You get a light framing colour from the manila tag fibres as well as that extra texture, which draws the eye to them more effectively.










Some twisted tangled thread adds more movement as well as a nice touch of random squiggliness to contrast with all the right angles and straight lines.

And of course there's been some spattering with leftover Snowflake white paint as I went along.  So there you have it.  I hope you like this quartet of ATCs, and I hope you enjoy the added spring sunlight... 

It's lovely to have the sun to cheer us through these tricky times.  I hope you'll have some bright sunshine at some point if you haven't got any yet.  We're all going to need every ounce of things-to-be-happy-about as the virus progresses.  Take care of yourselves and happy crafting all.

It's the little details that are vital.  Little things make big things happen.
John Wooden

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I'd like to add these ATCS to the collection of Little Things at the Funkie Junkie Boutique Blog
At Try It On Tuesday the challenge theme is Home Sweet Home/Where Would You Like To Live