Tacky Christmas Town postcards

Before we get to the postcards here's your last reminder to enter all of the Giving Thanks drawings from last week! The winners will be announced Wednesday!

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The cold that I got Halloween has really lingered so I'm still operating at about 70% capacity. The cold turned into something else so now I'm on antibiotics and expect to feel great soon! I had plans to work on some other things last week but in the end decided to focus on my Christmas postcards. I could work on them in shifts whenever I had the energy. I finished up the second, and most involved, set.

Here's my Tacky Town Christmas cards! These things were a ton of work but I got to use all of my blingy threads and geegaws. Here's how I made them.

It all starts with this sunprinted fabric. As with the Stag cards, these were sun printed with a stencil. I'd tell you where to buy the stencil but I can't find it anywhere. Anyway, also as with the Stag cards, sunprinting was a complete waste of time. It would have been faster and just as effective to simply STENCIL with paint as the word "stencil" implies. I have a few stencils that work great for sun printing but mostly there's really no effective difference with stenciling vs sun printing.
​I fused these to the stiff interfacing and was ready to go!

First a little outlining with metallic thread. For the windows and hearts I went around then 3 times to build up thread. Otherwise it just didn't show much. The outline of the building is done with Superior Glitter thread. It actually runs better than the metallic in my machine. 
Through making these cards I learned that my Brother Innov-is machine really doesn't care for the specialty threads. I feel a machine upgrade in my future.

I really didn't have a plan for these. I either picked an element that I wanted to do or a thread that I wanted to play with and did that until I was tired of it and then moved to something else.
Next I wanted to play with these cool metallic braids that I picked up at the Hampton Mancuso show last year. These are for bobbin work or couching. I put it in the bobbin and did the garland hanging from the buildings.

I was getting tired of stitching by this point but decided that this building needed a little tree.

Next up was foiling. I haven't done that in a long time! So during one of the football games I applied foiling glue to all of the parts that needed more tacky bling. 24 times....

A smart person who plans properly would have fused on the postcard backs before doing the foiling glue but that's not what I did. After the foil glue dried I applied foil to 2 doors, a roof line and a few windows. 
THEN I fused on the backs. I had to be careful not to get the iron too hot. I didn't want it to ruin the foiling. Then I edged them on the serger. This thread is Superior Halo. To be honest, I don't love this thread. I tried using it on  the machine for bobbin work and it's just too fragile. I only have 2 spools (red and green) and it runs fine in the serger so I'll try to use it up on Christmas cards. over the next couple of years.

​But I wasn't done! More bling needed!

Crystals were just the right finishing touch. My tree got a star, garland and doors got wreaths and some windows got lights.

I edged some in green and some in red just so I cold use both colors. I have 24 of these cards ready to address and mail. These were a ton of work so they will go only to the people who I know will appreciate them.
I'm working on the third, and easiest, set now and I think they are going to turn out to be the crowd favorite!