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

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

Sit Back and Relax

Here we go!

I received my package from Liz,My Texas Family, the other day. It was a large package and I was a little nervous that she had completely lost her mind and sent me too many things. :) Turns out that she sent me something that she made. by hand. with love. for me.

To say I was flabbergasted when I opened the package is an understatement.

(The Favorite Things Swap was hosted by According to Kelly - Thanks Kelly!!)




The card that she sent told me that she based her selection of items on the theme "Sit Back and Relax." She sent one of her favorite books, which by the way, I have NEVER read. (Insert gasp here) I know! I think about it, but haven't. I guess I was just waiting for someone to send it to me :)

Liz said that she just recently discovered this flavor of Country Time Lemonade and it's now her absolute favorite. It is going to be perfect for the hot muggy days here in Florida.

Now for this quilt. How beautiful. Truly, I was stunned that someone sent something like this. It's a piece of art that's been dropped in my lap :)

I took the quilt with me to Mayo Hospital and put it on the lawn to photograph it. I wanted to use the lawn at my condo, but the lawn guys were there - then the next time the sprinklers were going! So the quilt went on a little journey.

In the card that Liz sent she talked about the fabric...here's what she said. "The rose fabric is one I absolutely love. I bought the whole bolt about 3 years ago. You have the honor of having the first thing made with it. The pattern came from my favorite baby quilt book, but as you can see, it does not have to be just for babies. To be honest, I'm kind of jealous because it came out so good, and I can't make a copy because I used scraps for the rest of it. But that's OK because I made it just for you. I hope you Enjoy!"

I am truly honored to have such a lovely quilt. I do believe you were just waiting for me so you could make this :) I love it. Thank you. Thank you!

In the photo above I have crudely outlined the quilting pattern in the rose blocks. Isn't it just so sweet??!! If you go back up two photos, you can probably see the pattern now that I've pointed it out here.

Yesterday I talked about some of the items I sent her...all of the free printables on my post called The Goods. Liz talks about the quilt she made here in this post called Back in the Saddle Again. I'm so happy that she made it over the hurdle and is quilting again!!

If you'd like to see what other people have been giving and receiving in the favorite things swap, please go here to the Favorite Things Swap Flickr pool.

Have a fabulous day!
Kristin

Charmed I'm sure

My sister has been working on creating the flyer for my high school reunion. I dropped the ball a bit (I found out) and was waiting for her and she was waiting on me for one of the last details. Everyone always seems to be waiting on me to finish something before they can go on. I'm not sure if it's that my memory is bad that I don't realize that I'm eons behind in something or if I'm an avoider.

I'm going for the avoider.

I was excited about the reunion mailing, so I don't know what in the world I was avoiding. My sister did SUCH an awesome job, too, so that doubly confuses me. Well, I got up early this morning and sent in the PDFs to the printer online. I had until noon central to get everything loaded and approved by the printer gods. I got it in before 10am. The printer god approval needed to happen by 12 noon central time. I know I said that once, but I needed to make that positively sure that it was stressed. At 11:30 I got an email that my document did not meet the criteria for a 28 page document.



A 28 page document??

Then I got another email moments later that said that my PDF didn't have the correct bleed.

I finally had to make a phone call to get this mess cleared up. I got someone who was very helpful and we got my document approved, bleed and all for a two sided brochure at...

11:59:06am

WHEW!!

Good thing I didn't avoid my email for those two hours. I was on pins and needles waiting for confirmation that my printing order was being printed.

That was too close.


Speaking of close.

I took close up photos of my colored pencils and scissors in a fabulous pickle jar. I thought they looked fabulous, but couldn't seem to come up with a post that centered on the theme. So I decided to talk about the flyer my sister did. I'm not revealing the flyer until they get mailed, so this was an excellent fill-in.

Living a Charmed Life

I also took a photo of Mocha yesterday and realized that she was laying next to her book. I'm sure she was studying it, because Mochas life is certainly NOT charmed :)

You know I'm kidding.

I love this book, by the way, but I love nearly everything that Victoria Moran writes.


I hope you have a fabulous week!
Kristin



I almost forgot!!

I mailed everything you see in the photo above to my swap partner in the Favorite Things Swap!

Well, I couldn't give it away before she received the package, now could I?!!!

Ooooh, I can't wait until she gets it.

OK, now I'm done.

really.

Bye :)

Favorite Things

I am in love with swaps. I had so much fun participating in the Christmas and Valentines Day swaps that I've been itching to be in another one. In fact, the other day I was thinking I might just start one of my own! gasp!

Thankfully, Kelly over at according to Kelly, is having her Third Annual Favorite Things Swap. I read about this last year and was so bummed I had missed it. I have been keeping up, I though, with her blog making sure I didn't miss it again and it snuck up on me! The deadline to participate is Friday July 3rd.

If you are into swapping fun stuff and meeting new bloggers, please head on over to Kelly's place and read up on the Favorite Things Swap and see if it's something you'd like to be a part of this month.

I've already sent in my autobiography, typed and single spaced.

I can't wait to meet all of the Favorite Things Swappers!
Kristin