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

POTD - Vintage Thread

POTD - Vintage Thread

©2011 Kristin Corlett

My dear friend Dust Bunny gave me a jar of vintage thread one day last Spring.  She said that she'd been collecting the spools for quite awhile with the idea in mind to give a few friends a jar.  She tried to make a little speech about our friendship and the spools of thread, but I just remember us laughing because she stumbled with her words.  I think that was even sweeter :0) 

I've been working on the Remains of the Day pages for a handmade journal and I decided that I was going to add in a bit of that vintage thread.  I wasn't going to sew the whole book with it, but enough to spread the Dust Bunny love, combined with mine, to others.

Enjoy!
Kristin

POTD - Bundle

POTD - Bundle

©2011 Kristin Corlett

Just over a month ago I mentioned that I was part of a swap where I send out bundles of paper goodies from my stash and I receive bundles from other folks.  It was called a 10 for 10 swap.  Well, my 10 arrived yesterday and this is one of the bundles.  I just love the way it was presented with the old map on the outside and the vintage lace holding it all together.

Enjoy!
Kristin

It's a swap!

I have always been interested in journals, although I rarely write in them.  I have always been interested in scrapbooks, but never wanted to make one or try to even begin to understand page layout designs.  I have always wanted to put together an old time scrapbook book, where bits and pieces of a trip or an event were just pasted on pages. 

I have also always wanted to document the things that I see, that might not have any value to anyone else.  A soup label, a receipt, a cereal box.   This is probably one of the many reasons why I started taking photos of things instead of people. It seems like people are documented all the time in family photos and snapshots, but things aren't as often. 

Being a collector of things can make for an incredibly messy house - at least if I'm the one involved in the collecting!  I've tried for years not to buy things (but I do of course) and no matter how I try, crazy little bits of paper and objects make their way into my home.  I fell hard for security envelopes and have quite a collection now, with far too many ideas on how to use them, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist.  I want something done perfectly and if I can't do it perfectly, I just won't do it, yet I still believe that I will.

The other day I found this website called Remains of the Day.  It is the anti-perfect.  It explains how to use all the little bits and bobs, papers and fabrics from all of the collecting we've done and get it put into a journal that you make from all of those items.  You use a sewing machine and sew them in!

You can use about anything in there from old library cards to photographs and receipts.  I have been wanting to start sewing my photographs onto the fronts of the cards and maybe add a few embellishments, so I bought a sewing machine.  I haven't used it yet!

(It's that perfectionism again)

So I joined the class and the group was having a swap - you send in some of your stuff and you get some of someone elses stuff.  Which isn't a real good way to get rid of more stuff, but it does give me a bit more variety to work with.

 

Pluto is a planet in this book!!

In my scrap swap I gave away four pages from the dictionary, two pages from the hangman book (with all of the little scratch off discs still intact,) some pieces from the Butterick pattern, a small North Carolina playing card,  one of my photos, an old library card,  a portion of a tourist map,  big piece of the striped fabric shown, as well as a few items that didn't make it into the shot because I used up all I had in the swap packages.  I packaged up and mailed out the swap packages before I realized that I didn't take a photo!  Silly me.

About a week from now I'm going to begin my journal.  My friend is coming into town on Sunday and after she leaves I'm setting up a little sewing table in the guest room and will learn how to thread the sewing machine and get to work on my cover.  I'm really looking forward to it!  It's not about doing it perfectly, it's about doing it!!  Right?  Right!!

If you'd like to see a video of a finished journal, you can see one on the class info page, here.

I will update on my project as I go along.  Now if I can just get my house cleaned up enough so my friend will have a place to sleep :)

Have a great great day!
Kristin