I Go Out Walking...

A little while ago I showed the sneakiest of peeks of a project I’m going to be working on all year. Well, today’s the day for the big reveal over at Gauche Alchemy!

I always knew I was collecting postcards for a reason. (Apparently I have a bit of a thing for them.) Turns out this is it. I used to have hundreds covering my bedrooms walls at university – you know, the kind they give out as flyers or adverts or art – but they were long gone, recycled in one of my fits of ruthless cleaning over the years. Now, each time we go to a bar or museum or someplace similar we pick up the interesting ones, and the collection was starting to add up again. So now is my chance to give them all a reason to exist! Read on…

My aim for this year is to make up a mini book, filled with 52 postcards, each of which is scrapped with a photo taken during a weekly walk, with each photo inspired by a weekly prompt. The idea’s not new, I know, but I did think that the Scrapbook Challenges forum could benefit from a year-long project like this, so that is where you can find the prompts and members’ responses to those prompts if you’re interested in playing along (some catching up will be required by now, but the load is not too much. Besides, the prompts are guaranteed to get you thinking!).

I WILL stick to this project

this Gauche Alchemy boot wasn’t made for walking, it was made for adorning my mini book

go out walking - you might find dinosaurs (or other exciting stuff)

I’ve been keeping to the programme on the photograph front, and I’m almost up to date on the scrapping, too. Here’s what I’ve done so far, photograph-wise:

Thanks to Gauche Alchemy and their eclectic array of products, I was able to pick and mix and create a cover for this mini book that was perfectly suited to the theme of going on walks and taking photos. Here’s how the cover came together:

Products I used (all from Gauche Alchemy)

Color Kits – It’s All Gravy, Blue Streak, Purple People Eater

PVC Punchinella

Ouchless Cardboard
Mail Art kit
Nearly Nekkid kit

Regular Punchinella

I can’t tell you strongly enough how easy it is to come up with projects from the GA Color Kits – with them, a project pretty much makes itself. For example, I’ve nearly used up the whole Banana Hammock kit (even though it’s a difficult colour for me), and I’ve got a project in the pipeline using the (peach?) kit which is a colour I NEVER thought I’d use. On top of everything they’re great value because you get a lot of bits and pieces and some really unusual items in them. (I’ll tell you a secret… when I applied to be part of the Gauche Alchemy DT, they asked me which of their products I liked the best. I spent a paragraph gushing about how inspiring these Color Kits were – and that was just from the product photos in the GA Artfire store! Now I’ve got my hands on them – wow. I have not been disappointed!)

Time Travel

Hop in. I'm going on a short journey back to May, before we got married, before we (and by 'we' I really mean 'I') lost the plot and spun off into a crazed wedding-planning-induced stress, before my bout of blog neglect, and before I'd even considered the issue of identity and name being, somehow, inextricably interlinked.

A calm before the storm, you might say. (We did actually have a storm on our wedding day. It was forecast for the afternoon, but because I obviously didn't have the time that morning to check a weather report, I didn't have anything to worry about. I woke up to bright blue skies, and as far as I knew it, that was all there would be. All day. Ah, the power of positive thinking. The skies remained bright blue until they turned dark blue, and it wasn't until most people were inside and the band was playing that the heavens opened and the lightning forked and the thunder crashed, although not as loud as the drummer in the band drummed his drums.)

Anyway, in May we took a short trip to Copenhagen. Not the best of weather, and not the lightest on the pocket, but it was a welcome break and we had a mad 'quick, let's fit in as much touristy stuff as we can' weekend to bring the trip to an end. So there were lots of nice photos that made it look like we were there for 8 nights, not 4.

I knew from the moment I flicked through the photos on the way home that I wanted to make a mail art-inspired album to put them in. I also knew I wouldn't have time to do it until after the wedding. Meaning I had a lot of time to think about it, and that anything could happen in the meantime.

So what did happen in the meantime? Well (*grins*)... I made this awesome video, and became a video tutorialist for Gauch Alchemy, who then released a mail art kit called Going Postal (new this month!), and only went and sent it to me to play with, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Look out for the video tutorial for this album on the Gauche Alchemy blog soon!

Saving the Date: Waterfall Card Tutorial

As soon as I asked my husband-to-be if he'd prefer lollipop or filmstrip STDs, he immediately pricked up his ears. The plan was always that I was going to be making all the stationery and decorations myself,* but suddenly my man was offering assistance. It wasn't until we started making the STDs that I fully realised how grateful I was - and how good he is at doing stuff with paper ("It's just lady-tools, isn't it?").

* Later it turned out my mum would make a very large portion of the decorations too.

Anyway, we opted for a filmstrip-style design. But we wanted something a little different, a lot fun, and somewhat interactive. Here's what we came up with:

It's a postcard, a photo booth strip, and a waterfall, all in one. We received such awe-filled praise from our guests-to-be that, apart from feeling very pleased with ourselves, we want to share what we've done. So here's a little step-by-step on how to make a waterfall save the date postcard.

A few words of advice before you begin: decide on - and print - the final photos you want to use BEFORE cutting any card. It'll save you loads of time, stress and wastage. Even though you'll probably take some amazing photos that you love, you might have to let go of them and accept that they don't work. For this project the photos were portrait and roughly passport-sized (4.3cm x 5.6cm to be exact). All relevant measurements I give will relate to this size.

For the mechanics of the card:

1. Cut your card to size, and print your message on the back. (If you've chosen an image to print on the front, like we did, print this too now.) Our cards were postcard size - A6/C6.

2. Cut a strip of card that is as long as the postcard is wide and wide enough to be sturdy (2). Ours were 2.4cm wide by 10.5cm long.

3. Cut another strip that is as long as an A4 piece of paper, portrait-wise, and as wide as your photos (3). Ours were 4.3cm wide by 29.7cm long.

4. Measure where you want your small strip (4a) - about a fifth of the way up from the bottom of the card is good. Measure where the large strip needs to be folded - one end needs to join to the small strip (4b). And you don't want it to extend past the top of the postcard, so you'll need to make a fold there (4c).

Then fold and score the large strip like this:

so that the intervals between folds are half the height of your photos, except for the first one (the part where your large strip will join onto your small strip).

5. Fix the small strip across the postcard - with glue, double-sided tape, eyelets, brads, whatever you want. Just make sure you only fix it at the edges because the large strip needs to move underneath the small strip (5).

6. Fix the large strip to the small strip with glue or double-sided tape (4b again).

7. If you want to, back your photos with patterned paper:

- do this before sticking the photos down.

8. Then stick them down, the last photo in the sequence first (on top of the part that joins the small strip), by applying the glue or double-sided tape to the large strip and then putting the photo in place (it's much easier this way round, trust me!).

9. To make sure your recipients know what to do when they receive the card, give them a little instruction (9). Alternatively, you can punch a hole and add a ribbon if you prefer, or anything else you can think of.

Et voila!

It took us about 10 hours altogether to make 50 of these. That DOESN'T include the time we spent agonizing over the photos, which I don't really want to talk about! The chosen pics in the end were a compromise but we're essentially happy with them... except that we are a little gutted that this one had to be vetoed (yes, my fault, because I didn't like my expression):

Still, we had fun! I hope you like them!

Short and Sweet

The distractions of the birth of a wedding and the death of a laptop leave me short on time today, so I'll just say that the postal system is once again graced with my custom - I'm almost caught up with the Postcard a Week challenge!

Here is what March brought: no great shakes, but I do seem to using the postcards to experiment with styles and techniques. Which doesn't always lead to success, but hey ho, on we go!

A Lady and Her Dress

I discovered something at the weekend - I can draw a bit. I was sketching and I thought to myself, wouldn't it be nice to be able to draw like a fashion designer? So I sketched some more, and then got all brave and took out a black Copic pen and committed. I drew strong lines over my pencil sketches and did not look back.

This is not what my wedding dress looks like by the way.

Then the trusty Copic markers came out - they're really quite good - and a bit of paper shaping, and voila - a lady and her dress.

A teeny smudge or a snub nose? You decide...

It's a postcard, which means I haven't given up on my Postcard a Week challenge. But it's a departure from mail art for sure, into the realms of I-know-not-what-I-can-do. It's inspired by the fact that a couple of weeks ago I collected my wedding dress from England, and it now sits in my wardrobe to be peeked at (only by me though) every other day. Which is all Rather Exciting. Especially as I also have all but one item of the rest of my outfit, meaning that I am going to be trying it all on about once a week from now until September.

I'm not brave enough to draw feet yet. But it was important to get the crinoline in there! 

I'll be working on catching up with the postcards this week - after this, who knows what I'll come up with?

Thoughts on Trees

Trees are pretty incredible, if you stop to think about them. I rarely have time to pause and appreciate their beauty, strength and resilience, let alone their place in time and in the cultural history of humanity. Even less so their calming, quieting effect. But here I find a brief moment of tranquillity, as we begin a new month, to wonder and to be awed by them.

At the weekend we went to the forest again - a favourite place for us and for our dog. It's actually an arboretum, so we get to admire trees from all over the world as we hike around. It's the place we've always been able to wedding plan without the stress or distractions of external factors. At the weekend we needed to get away from these stresses and distractions a little more than usual. A few hours later, we were back home for lunch with lightened hearts and a solution.

So my postcard this week was a built from this - a little collage of a tree made from a leaflet that was advertising a wedding show.

An addendum: even though the arboretum is impressive, the most breathtaking tree that I've seen lately lives in a park just down the road from us.

Each time I see it I'm struck by its massiveness. How old it must be! This one really is an incontrovertible symbol of life. And just to put it into perspective:

It's got me to thinking how we'd both love to incorporate The Tree as a symbol into our wedding. Watch this space...

Postcards and Previews

The heart month still isn't over, as my postcard this week proves:

I tried my hand at an arty printed postcard this time - taking a photo opportunity from the piles of wedding invitation prep. We have this neat little portable postcard printer, that in theory should be taken with us whenever we go away but rarely is... anyway, it came out beautifully. It's better for photos than our regular printer.

I've also been working on testers for wedding venue decoration. Here are a few peeks:

 

 

 

I am so in love with music score paper flowers right now! And check out that last pic - a tissue paper lollipop!

Sending the Love

It's not often a word or phrase shared between my family and me, but that's not to say it doesn't exist between us. Far from it; I've been supported in more ways than I could ever have asked for, in every decision I've made, from going away to university to going away to Belgium.

A little postcard sent with love is a tiny acknowledgement of this love and support.

The words are letterpressed and the fabric hearts are ones I cut and sewed myself. The little image on the left of the postcard is courtesy of Renoir.

Come back next week for a much bigger nod to my family, when I'll be Sharing the Love.

Finding your Place

This weekend we were working on our wedding invitations. In amongst the mayhem of sketching, planning, measuring, cutting, discussing, testing, rejecting and trying again, I had a bit of time to reflect on things. At times this reflection was rising to panic; but on Sunday we met with the lady in charge of the venue and somehow it became obvious that everything was starting to slot into place. So, calmed, I came back to reflection.

There is a lot of advice on wedding blogs and websites and forums to the tune of 'don't get into arguments with your future spouse'. But I have found nothing saying that getting into arguments with your future spouse is inevitable, and that it's the way you come out of it that's important. Well, a few flare ups between us have shown that it's inevitable, but we came through, and perhaps now have even more respect and love to show for it.

This week's postcard was super simple, but super poignant.

Postcard a Week + Sneak Peek

Well. Another week has rolled around, and although it was a week spent mostly on wedding planning, my postcard only reflects the new stamp set I got from America.

My first Tim Holtz products: Bitty Grunge it is, and I love it. Nothing much else features apart from the great stamps. But that's OK - I've been kinda busy!

While I've got your attention, I'd like to share a cheeky sneak at my February Lipstick Chick challenge. What with all the wedding planning and Valentine's Day around the corner, love is definitely in the air. I happened to be playing with paper and made a 3D card, which I'll show you in full next week:

It's All About Cards

As those two ladies of Good Mail Day write, there's nothing quite like receiving something personalised and made and sent just for you in the post; emails and e-cards just don't cut it. They talk about the rules of mail art sending - that you should honour everything you receive with a reply - and then reiterate this in a softer way - that if you want to receive something, all you have to do is send something and wait for the response. I'm happy to say it's working: my Postcard-a-Week postcards have resulted in this, which came through my letterbox yesterday:

 

Which spurred me to on make a reply, even though I didn't have an awful lot to say. Last week was very full of work and not much play. The weekend, however, was full of relaxing, wood walking and going to the market on Sunday to buy yummy artisanal food for lunch (and dinner, it turned out. Never shop for food when you're hungry!). So that's what informed the reply I sent:

 

The little play I did get to have last week was very time-pressured and resulted in a handful of little-effort cards that I'm not thrilled with. But freelancers must not say no to work. I did make it a bit difficult for myself, but at least I didn't fall to pieces.

I used my Letterpress for the sentiment on this card - I'm waiting for the opportunity to use it more!

 

 

 

And finally... Tuesday was the 25th. That means, according to my resolution, and like Sandra and my mum and probably many others, Christmas creation day. I stuck with a theme and got some cards under my belt (11 to be exact. It would've been 12, but I stamped the inside of one of them upside down):

And with that I think I'll have a little break from card-making. Got to save my efforts for wedding invitations (coming very soon!).