Postcards!

Recently I was turned on to a site that promotes international communication.  It’s called Postcrossing, and it encourages people to send postcards to strangers.  They give you names and addresses after you set up a profile.  Once a postcard you send is received, then you become eligible to receive one from someone.  I love this idea!  I love receiving mail through the post office, I love pictures, and I love the idea of connecting with others from different cultures. 

I signed up in January, went out and purchased a couple of postcards and started sending.  You can send as many, or as few, as you would like.  I’ve sent out six so far with one getting ready to go today. 

The one I’m sending out today is going to a girl in Germany who wouldn’t mind getting a homemade card.  Some people specify that they want specific cards – art, places, history, dogs, cats, etc.  This girl likes food and recipes.  It gave me an idea.

I went to the local craft store to see if I could get a postcard stamp.  Alas, no luck.  I ended up ordering a set of Tim Holtz postcard stamps.  

They seemed the most versatile.  The others I saw didn’t appeal to me, but I always try to keep an open mind.  The stamps were delivered to me yesterday, so last night I set out to work.  The only food photo I found was of the birthday cake I made a few years ago for Gaige.  

I trimmed the edges a little and set it on a 4”x6” piece of cardstock that I had salvaged from an old report.  I glued it on with Aileen's Tacky Glue.  I really want this photo to stay on during shipping.  I stamped the back and let it dry and now it’s ready for an address and note!

I really am excited about sending it out.  I hope she likes it.  What I truly want is to have a pen pal.  I had one when I was a kid.  She was from Japan and we sent letters all the time until we were in our late teens.  I don’t know why we stopped.  Perhaps it was boys and dating.  I know in my case that was probably it.  I wish I knew what happened to her.  I miss learning about someone else’s culture through private letters.  It’s one thing to read Wikipedia.  It’s another to read it in someone else’s handwriting about their very own experience.

I hope you like the postcard and the idea of it.  It’s a pretty simple project, but one that can give you a lot of satisfaction and could definitely brighten another’s day.

School Days Album

This is a project that I contemplated for a long while and then finally jumped in with both feet at an all-day crop.  Sometimes all day crops are hard to pack for, because if you’re like me you have a ton of projects and they are scattered and tucked in all over your work space.  If you are totally organized then I want to be your best friend and you can make my space useable!!!

This project that I had been delaying was a school days book for each of my grandkids.  I had cleaned out binders at work, and instead of throwing them away I was told I could take as many as I wanted.  Woohoo!  Three-ring binders for free!  Granted, they weren’t in the best condition, but they were usable and had potential.  I began dreaming right away of what I would use them for and how and that’s when I came up with the school days idea. 

I had a school days book when I was a kid, that my mom filled out and then as I got older I took over.  It had my school photos, friends, clubs, report cards, and I’m so glad that my parents thought it was important.  I look at it now and I see the year I cut my own hair because I wanted bangs.  And there’s the year I tried to do a glamour pose on picture day.  That’s the year I joined FFA and art club.  <sigh> Memories.  They are right there in that book in their most basic form and then my brain kicks into recall and it’s like going back.  Well, I want that same feeling for the kids.  I was lucky because I went to the same school my whole life.  The grands move around – a lot.  I thought this might give them a semi-permanent place to land once in a while.

I started with a binder that I cleaned off fairly well.  They had been on the shelf for quite some time and were a bit dusty.  The kids had picked out their duct tape and I had some old DCWV paper on hand.  Now these are not state of the art albums, but they were crafted with love.  I glued the paper onto the binder with my Aileen’s Tacky Glue.  Then I used the duct tape to secure the edges so they don’t rip or fray.  I also used it for the spine of the book.  The kids really liked that.  They liked it better than the paper so next time we may just go with straight tape.  However, my vision was with paper so that is where I went.

I also used coordinating paper for the pages, some of which I slipped into protective page coverings.  I also made pockets out of used manila envelopes.  My whole idea was to recycle/re-use as much office supplies as I possibly could.  I know it’ll barely make a dent in a landfill, but I needed to try.  I will eventually add photos from scouts and 4H and different things they did with their friends, but at least this part is done and ready to go.  The kids were surprised and they thought it was pretty cool that I did it for them.  I hope they really appreciate it when they are older and can look back and say, “That’s the year I almost won the rain gutter regatta”, or “That’s the year I let my bangs grow out”.

I just hope it makes them smile.