Spring DIY Postcard Swap

Cat at the Beach

by Kristin Corlett

This is my second postcard swap with the folks at iHannah, a blogger, crafter, positive influencer from Sweden.  I joined this swap just a week or two before the deadline, but being in the beginning stages of the lockdown from Covid-19, I was so grateful to have something creative to do.

The Spring Post Card Swap 2020 was an event by the creator of the Studio iHannah blog and this was the 10 year celebration!  She's been hosting this handmade postcard swap twice a year for 10 years.  If you want to be notified the next time the swap comes around, sign up for her newsletter at the iHannah blog. 

It looks like I have 11 cards posted here, but I only mailed out 10 for the swap.   Last time I created the postcards, I created scenes for a lot of them.  This time was a bit more scattered in thought, but circles, stripes and squares were common in the cards.

The card at the top of the post, Cat at the Beach was a striped card that somehow turned into the adorable cat looking over the fence.  It's a favorite of mine.

This one above with the CAMP sticker on it was circles and squares mostly with a few fun bits tossed in to make it more interesting.

I think this one with the sunset picture and the gift card envelope was my color blocking card.  It was one of my last cards for the swap and I really wanted to use the gift card picture.

These next two, the one above and below were put together with all of the little bits that I wanted to use, but couldn't find a place for them.  Also, I do recall that I was on the couch and most of my pictures and cut outs were in the other room, so yep, this is what I had around me at the time.  On the postcard above, I have used a Fast Jax Trivia answer slip.  No trivia shows for the near future with everything closed down, so it was nice to put one of the slips in the postcard collage.

This card was a two sided card - I think I sent this off to a person that lives in Germany, but I can't be positive  We have a mini donut place here in Jacksonville, Florida called the Mini Bar.  A bit of their advertisement on this card, plus a bowl of ice cream - chocolate, my favorite!  The striped background is a portion of a gift bag.   I am nearly positive that my cat chewed on the bag, so it couldn't be used anymore for gift giving!

The LOVE!  That's about all I wanted this one to say -- love.  I didn't want the message to be lost in the collage, so I added complementary colors on the remaining edge.

I received a message today that someone received a card with a recipe on it -- I wonder if it's this one?  This was from the little monthly cookbook that Martha Stewart used to put out.  It's a great size for the postcard project.

These two postcards with the olives are my top favorites!  One was striped and the other blocked.  I love olives, so much so that my husband and I came up with our own Olive Tapenade recipe.  I swear, it's the best thing out there.  It's here in my blog - called Olive Tapenade, our way.

Funny about this one - I put a recipe for Potatoes Au Gratin on it and I made that dish last night, but not from this recipe - I had forgotten about it already!  Mine didn't come out as awesome as I wanted, so I'll have to look at this recipe again.

The 11th card -- stripes are once again the theme.  I found this page of hand drawn people and little blurbs about what they were doing throughout the day.  I thought it was fun and quirky.  So glad I was able to get one of those into the swap postcard.


I finally dug my sewing machine out of my closet and was able to add a little bit of stitching to each card.  I love sewing paper with the sewing machine.  It's easy to do, but if you sew fabric and try to use the needle that you used for paper, you will be disappointed.  The needle will be quite dull.  So make sure you have a new needle for your fabric.

That's all for today!
I hope you are staying well.

Have a great day,
Kristin

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