DIY Post Card Swap part 2

We are already into the new year (2020) and I never did come back and finish my DIY Post Card Swap.  As I mentioned in the previous post, the Post Card Swap was an event by the creator of the Studio iHannah blog and if you signed up you were tasked with creating 10 handmade postcards to mail to others in the swap -- I had a few international swaps, so that was real fun knowing they were going to be sent to another country. 

I created most of my postcards out of paper ephemera (aka, stuff that most everyone throws away,) but I also used washi tape, magazine pages, stickers and bits and pieces of greeting cards. 

The above post card was made (top to bottom) from two pieces of magazine pages (the donut and candy), a paper band taken from around silverware at a restaurant (coffee), a postcard sent out from a local retailer about a vintage sale near the beach (VW bug and flamingo) and finally the bottom part is from a greeting card. 

The Beautiful card above is made with security envelopes, magazine cutouts, Kleenex box and yellow colored acetate.  I try to keep all of the hanging lamps that I can find in magazines.  It's so much fun to put them into a collage just hanging down from the top in whatever scene is going on.  This one looks like it could be highlighting the miniature people. 

One of our local pizza places has some of the best creative advertising.  They were talking about their great bread and had this gondolier riding in a bread stick!  How could I not use that.  It was pure comedy.  Then I found a magazine photo of real gondolas and gondoliers - the two were meant to be together.

Since this swap was all about mail, I chose to make one of the cards with several mail related items.  A pick up tag for my mail at my mailbox, the return address from an Etsy purchase I made with a woman from Russia, my Park and Fly tag, the number I received when I took my car in for service, the stamp I got on a piece of mail and of course the *Fra-jeel-a sticker on a package I received. 
*ya know, from A Christmas Story!

This one all started with a FLOW magazine.  I love those umbrella people and I also really liked the green paper with the abstract floral design and they were both found in that magazine.  Then of course, I found a hanging light.  The rest just sort of worked to make it look good. 

I worked long and hard to find a place for the skate boarding kid.  I had him all cut out and tried him on so many different backgrounds and configurations.  I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to place him.  I found this green plate or bowl that had just the right curves and the right size for the post card and that finally made the kid work.  Then I decided he could "jump the shark" while he was cruising through the mountains.  Unrealistic, sure, but fun!

The gorgeous fall colors of this mountainous area was the jumping off point for this postcard.  The zig zag of the orange from a another Kleenex box, I thought played well with the mountain colors.  The rest was fun foliage and of course a hanging element, this time a spider.  The base for this postcard was the back cover of a braille book, so I used a portion of a page of braille to go with it. 

The first post I showed 3 of the cards and this one 7, so that concludes the 10 handmade post cards that I made for the DIY Post Card Swap.    Coming up sometime soon, I will show what I received in the swap. 

I hope you have a great day!
Kristin

DIY Postcard Swap

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

DIY Post Card Swap is something I found through Studio iHanna just this year and just a few days ago.  The time to sign up has passed and the postcards should have been mailed out by now, but she has two of these swaps each year, so if you're interested, please get on her email list or follow her blog or Instagram. Those that used the special hashtag when posting #diypostcardswap can be used to see what postcards have been made and sent out. 

Sadly, my postcards did not get mailed out by the deadline, but they will be by Monday.  I hate being late!  I hate it!

I had such a great time creating my cards.  I made just slightly bigger versions of my Index Card A Day project this summer. I was delighted to pull out my ephemera (paper) and collect even more bits and pieces the few days I was creating the cards.  Steve, who usually rolls his eyes at me saving things that should be trash, helped collect a few things.  He does love to see the childlike excitement that comes over me!

Here is one of the first postcards I did for the swap.  My love of security envelopes is well known, but not for those that receive the card!  I created mountains with the envelopes and then used the stickers that I had just recently received from an Etsy shop, Lissovacraft, and the green stripes were from the packaging that she used.  I absolutely love her work and will someday get a handmade poster with her paper plants and flowers, but for now, I have stickers. 

I used a few Jacksonville magazines for this card and a magazine that we received from Amazon for kids toys.  The purple pinata was from that Amazon book.  It was too funny to not use.  There was a special section in the other magazine about doughnuts and cookies, so that worked real well with the pinata.

My birthday was last month and I hated to just bury the card that I received in a pile in my room so I recycled quite a bit of it into this post card.  The Sunset block near the bottom is from a wetnap that was given to someone at a restaurant.  I loved the retro look to it.  This particular one happened to go through the washer - so it's extra distressed. 

I created 10 postcards, so I hope you keep with me to see the remaining 7 in upcoming blog posts.  I promise it will be soon. 

Have a great day!
Kristin

Chairs and more chairs by Doris Salcedo

"1550 Chairs Stacked Between Two City Buildings" location based installation by artist Doris Salcedo (2003) for the Istanbul Biennial. 

I have been asking for bread bag tags from friends and family and I routinely get little bundles in the mail.  Sometimes I get 4 or 5 tags and sometimes, like at the restaurant the other night with friends, I am handed a bag stuffed to the gills with them.  The joy of receiving things in the mail is incredible!  I hope to start sending out more snail mail this year to spread the JOY of real physical mail.

Back to the bread bag tags.

My requests for the tags is always followed by, "What are you going to do with them?"

Well, I can now tell you what I'm NOT going to do.  I will not toss them all between two buildings to make an art installation.  I cannot even begin to imagine how many chairs it would take to make a pile that size**, but what I can tell you, is that the number of bread bags tags to make a pile that size would be in the hundreds of millions if not hundreds of trillions.

I have several hundred tags now, so I'm really pleased that at some point in the very near future I can start using them in art projects.  I'm thinking the first project will be fairly small - maybe filling an art canvas.  If you are saving bread bag tags for me, don't stop!  My ultimate goal is to be able to fill an entire wall in my house with the tags.  I still need thousands more tags and I, personally, only come across one or two a month.  I'm finding that it takes a village to collect bread bag tags.  I bet it took more than a village for Doris Salcedo to collect all of those chairs!

**I guess I didn't even read the photo caption - there are 1550 chairs in this installation!  (where is that V8 when you need it?)

More on Doris Salcedo here

Have a wonderful day!!
Kristin

Artwork

I purchased this print back in July of 2010.  It's from a watercolor artist who sells under the name of Jellybean on Etsy.   I just fell in love with it.  I'd been eyeing it for over a year and when there was only one left in that size, I knew my time was almost up to get it. So I did :)

Now that I had an unframed piece, it needed to be framed.  I know NOTHING about framing.  I really don't know how to match colors or pick matting.  I just know what I like when I see it and I honestly don't want to stand in a frame store and spend an hour worrying that I've made the wrong decision.

Thankfully my sister, Alison, understands what I like and she has absolutely no trouble picking colors so I sent the Apple Tree to her to frame for me.

She messaged me a few weeks later with photos and an explanation that she had purchased two mats for the print - one was the purple one above and then she had a white one to go over the top that would leave just a little border of purple.  When she looked at it, she thought the purple mat alone might be great, too.  So she asked me to choose.  Small purple border or big purple?  small or big?  double matted or single? 

Oh, the pressure!

Although a lot less pressure than if I had to pick out everything.  At least in this instance Alison liked both options, so it was win win no matter what I chose.

When she sent the photos I got the first glimpse at the gorgeous blue frame that is the exact same color as one of the little tree dots.

Obviously I decided to do all purple, single mat.  I thought it really brought out the colors of the tree more than with just the little border.

I would have never picked out the blue/purple combination if Alison wouldn't have picked it out.  I probably would have picked a black frame, because I always seem to pick black frames.  It's safe.

Alison has a few items in her Etsy shop, alisonartisan, if you'd like to stop by and take a look.  She's also been gathering photos of her mural work and some painted furniture and has them showcased on facebook - Murals by Alison.   She painted a pool house for me.  Goodness, I loved it so much.  I hated to move and leave that behind.  Photos here.

Yep, I'm totally talking about my sister :)  I've admired her art in all forms for as long as I can remember.

Have a wonderful day!
Kristin

Excitement

A few months back I heard of a call for artists for a new book that was being put together. 

Wait...Let me go back to the beginning...

I was reading a book by the author, Patti Digh, called "Life is a Verb" and it was full of original art from a hundred or more artists.  It really made the book incredibly interesting on so many levels.   I wondered how she got all of these artists together and when I went to her website there was a message on her site that said there was an artist call for her newest book.  So I answered the call.  Many months went by and I had literally forgotten about it, until just a few weeks before my trip to Rome when I got an email.  I was given a few words for my inspiration and was asked to send in my artwork within the week!

In the book, Life is a Verb, I don't recall there being a single photograph, it was every type of art imaginable - collages, paintings, watercolors, sculpture, pen and ink, but no photos.  I was  pretty sure that one of my photos, unadorned with anything extra, would be tossed aside immediately, but I still found a photo that fit the inspiration words and one that I loved...so I sent it in.  I was asked a few days later, to send in a short bio on myself, but in the rush to get myself ready to go to Rome, I didn't get the bio written before my trip and therefore didn't get it in at all.  But I thought, that's OK, they won't chose my photo anyway.

Until yesterday. :)

I got an email that my photo was indeed selected as one of the many pieces going into the newest book!   My photo may have been selected to illustrate a different entry than the one I was given, but it was selected to be in the book.  My compensation is that I will receive a complimentary copy.

If you have ever been with me in a book store I gravitate to the Self-Help section, so it stands to reason that my first published work will be in a book titled -- Four Word Self Help by Patti Digh.

What a thrill!  I'm so excited.  I don't think I can disclose what photo I submitted, so that's the reason for the question marks above.  Believe me, as soon as the books hit the stores, I'll be showing off the photo again and again :)

I hope you have a great day!
Kristin

Grandma's Chair

I Am In Love.

Head over heels in love.

Seriously, I even became a bit of a stalker - good thing it was an art fair - you're allowed to stalk from 10am through 5pm on art fair days :)

Julie Schwarz in her booth
photo by Leigh - Thanks Leigh!

This is what has just about sent me over the edge.  It's the art, the artist, the booth design, and the personality of the prints, the artist and the booth design!  The artwork is hanging from old ladders.  I didn't notice that the first day I met Julie, but I did notice it after the second time.  By the third time I saw Julie I was an expert.

See?  I'm in love :)

The artist is Julie Schwarz and she's from Michigan!  I first met her at the Orange Beach Art Fair in Alabama.

She explained that each photo is actually a Polaroid photo that was "smushed" (her term) before it completes the photographic process.  She'd use things like her fingernails, cuticle sticks, golf tees, etc to make marks on the newly emerging image. This gives such an interesting look to each photo, which just can't be replicated.  She then scans the Polaroid to make an e-negative so that she can print them like you would any other type of photo.

I wanted to buy on the spot, but couldn't make up my mind.  I was torn between two photos. Grandma's Chair and Pottery Barn.

Grandma's Chair

I took this photo at the art fair, so the light was bouncing off the glass like crazy.  But I have a little red and white step stool chair that was my grandmother's, so I was immediately drawn to this one.  The frame was red barnwood, which complemented the red in the photo which would fit right into my home because I have a lot of red tossed about :)

This photo earned Julie an award at the Orange Beach Art Fair, so that's very cool, too.  It means that she's invited back next year.  Guess that means I'm coming back next year, too!

Pottery Barn

I love love love pottery.  I eat out of pottery bowls or plates every day.  I love the feel of silky smooth glazes.  I love the colors and and and, I can go on for years about the things I love about pottery.  The one thing I don't have is a really cool photo of pottery.

So, I left the Orange Beach Art Fair knowing that I'd go to the Fairhope, Alabama Art Fair the following weekend and Julie, we're tight friends by this point, said she'd be there all weekend.  All week I thought about those photos.

Which one?

The chair or the pottery?

Chair or Pottery?

Red frame? or Black frame?

I still had no idea which one I would choose until I finally arrived at Julie's booth a week later at Farihope. Then as I was looking at both of the photos I realized that one place that I still hadn't placed a piece of art was at the front door.  It's a red wall and that black frame would be perfect.

But I still really loved Grandma's Chair!

Julie then told me that the Pottery Barn photo was #1 out of 500.

SOLD!

It's not very often when you can get the first one of an edition.  I mean, you have to be first!

Here it is, in place at my front door.  Beautiful!

Click on the photo to enlarge so you can see the gorgeous wood on this piece of art.  Julie's husband, Daryl Schmidt,  makes the frames for her artwork out of barnwood, old ladders or other rustic woods.  

Love it!

The first day I met Julie, I was gushing so much about how much I loved her work that she gave me this magazine.  It is the 2009-2010 Guide to Harbor Country.  It serves the Michigan cities of Michiana, Grand Beach, New Buffalo, Three Oaks, Union Pier, Lakeside, Harbert and Sawyer, where Julie lives!  The guide featured Julie's work throughout the magazine and on the cover, shown above. 

Each new topic in the Guide had a little blurb to what could be found in that section and then three Polaroid shots of Julie's work. 

And look!  Under the shopping topic is Grandma's Chair!  I may have to frame this page.

I went back to the Fairhope Art Fair with Leigh (Tales from Bloggeritaville) and Jennifer (Dust Bunny Hostage) and we spent a good 30 minutes in Julie's booth.  Both Leigh and Jennifer bought the book that she had and we all admired the beautiful artwork and frames.  I contemplated buying Grandma's Chair again.  I realized that it was #22 of 500.  Twenty-two being my favorite number, but I resisted, kicking and screaming.

I'm so pleased with my purchase and it was worth the three trips combined to both art fairs to get to know Julie Schwarz.  She was so much fun and infinitely interesting.  I can't wait to see her again next year.


Have a wonderful Monday!
Kristin