Sending Love with DIY Postcards

A couple of weeks back one of the gals in a very special circle of crafty friends mentioned that Mark Montano was doing a DIY Handcrafted Postcard Swap. The idea is to create your own postcards (ten to be exact), pay a small fee for handling, mailing and sorting, send to Mark and receive ten other postcards from around the world. It was a project to share a little love and care during these wild times in our world. Isn’t that kind of Mark Montano?

I was really excited to be a part of the post card swap as it was a way to spread a little love. Here’s a little simplified how to on how I created my postcards.

• I purchased a large poster-sized piece of watercolor paper from Michael’s (with a coupon of course).
• I started by putting down some paper from old patterns, some misc. ephemera, and some patterned paper randomly across the surface using PVA, like a white glue.
• I chose a color palette and began painting with acrylic paint randomly in different areas.
• I added a couple of die cuts to give it a little raised interest.
• Next I stenciled with spray ink and acrylic spray paint.
• Almost at each step I walked away and let it dry which made it easy to come back to it when I had time.
• Once I liked how much coverage I had over the surface with paint and ink, I then took a postcard sized template based on Marks’s specific measurements, and traced out rectangles. I could have been really picky and made a template to choose which very specific areas I wanted on the large sheet but I liked how each section turned out so I just traced with a pencil one rectangle after another, getting as many as I could.
• Once complete with tracing I stamped an image (some of my favorite older stamps) on a piece of deli paper. I then I cut out or ripped around the image and placed one on each postcard in the desired area with PVA glue.
• Lastly, I put finishing touches on by inking and adding more smaller stamping.

It was a fun easy project that I could take in little chunks of time. I’m thrilled to be a part of this swap of postcards with a purpose.

I have a little prize package (photo below), that I’d like to send to someone. It contains one of my favorite Tim Holtz’ stencils, a cute Jane Davenport face stamp, some little Disney Princess cutouts, a tag I created with my Gel Press plate for you to complete, and two handcrafted postcards.

In order to win this little package, if you aren’t already subscribed, please subscribe (right column of the blog), and make a comment below on one way that you are spreading or receiving some hope and love during this season. I’ll chose a random winner by August 31.

Sending warmest creative wishes,