Postcards Are Mailed!

I actually finished my postcards for iHannah's postcard swap a couple of days ago (when it was still March, amazingly), but didn't get them sent out until this morning. Still, I'm nearly a week early for the deadline, and they're off into the world, 2 to the Netherlands, 1 to Sweden, 1 to Norway, 1 to Canada, and the rest to various places in the US. I've posted pictures of the individual cards at the DIY Postcard Swap Pool on Flickr.

I hope the recipients like them, because I'm actually pretty pleased with the way they turned out. It was an unusually painless process for me, since I usually stress and obsess way more than necessary over anything I do that people are going to see.

Plus, I finally got to experiment with the rub-on film I bought lord knows how long ago. It can be run through a printer or stamped or drawn on, then used as a regular rub-on. The little flourish above was drawn with a metallic gold colored pencil, which didn't turn out as metallic once it was applied, but otherwise came out well.

The eggs on the card above were done with a stamp I carved, then stamped onto the film and applied. I carved the wren stamp, too, but just stamped it directly on the card. You can see how the film changed the color of the ink slightly, which is fine.

I could have stamped or drawn the eggs and the flourish directly on the cards, but it's good to see how the rub-on film worked, which was really very well. I think it would be better to use for computer images, or on non-flat surfaces where you couldn't conveniently draw or stamp. I don't know how well it would hold up on hard surfaces like glass or ceramics. Maybe if it were sealed with some sort of topcoat.... Fun stuff to play with, though.

Postcard Progress

I've actually been making progress on my postcards for iHanna's Postcard Swap. I've done a little every day, not rushing things or waiting till the last minute, which is completely unlike me. If I'm not careful I may have these sent out this week, barring disaster. Above are some of my early sketches. Here are the final drawings I decided on. I wanted to do them in different styles, so some are pen and ink, some water-soluble graphite pencil (love that!), some very minimalist line drawings, and of course the colorful birds are in watercolor. Oh, there's also a wren card made with some hand-carved stamps, but I didn't take a picture of that one yet. My creative process in action, i.e. spread everything out and see what ends up next to each other.

Cutting out crows.

Starting to put things together. I know most people begin by painting backgrounds, and sometimes I do that too, but but for these I wasn't sure what the birds would end up looking like, so I wanted to do them first and then see what sorts of backgrounds would suit them. Some are simple watercolor washes, stamped or not, some have little paintings or drawings, and a couple will have decorative papers for backings. Then I'll add previously-painted watercolor scraps or stickers or rub-ons, whatever seems appropriate. I would have finished some of them today, but discovered that there was only about two inches left in my glue runner, and some of the thinner papers really need a dry adhesive. At least I'm still ahead of the game so far.

Postcards and Pink Embroidery

I've signed up for the DIY Postcard Swap over at iHanna's blog, which should be interesting. I'm feeling very behind because apparently some people already have their postcards finished, while I'm still working through what mine are going to look like. "Something to do with birds" is about as far as I've gotten. Well, maybe slightly farther than that, since I've cut out the supports for the cards, and painted a couple of them, and drawn some birds, and I already have some previously-painted little scraps of watercolor paper to use, but how they'll end up is anyone's guess. But I'm still mainly at the pile of stuff above. See, there's not even any adhesive-type stuff in the picture yet. I'm very excited to see the postcards I'll be getting in return. I'm sure I'll be thinking, "Damn, why didn't I think of that?" Judging by what I've seen on other people's blogs so far, I'm sure they'll be fabulous and shame me. I finished my pink embroidered scarf last week. I'm pretty pleased with it, though that linen-blend wrinkles if you look at it funny. I had to iron it about 5 times before I finally got around to taking the pictures, because it got obvious and prominent wrinkles every time I touched it. I'd thought about adding some ribbon above and/or below the embroidery, but decided against it. I didn't have the right shade(s) of pink, and it really didn't add anything. Less is, in fact more, most of the time. Since it's supposed to SNOW! tonight, here's some pictures of the apricot tree when it was blooming last week. It was very lovely, but it always blooms too early and then it gets frostbitten. It's never actually had any apricots on it that I can recall. It was actually swarming with bees when I took the picture, but apparently the bees declined to be photographed.