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?

Me and K

Once upon a time I vowed to make a postcard a week during 2011.

January saw me super-motivated; February saw me fuzzy-headed but plodding on; but March rolled around and the postcard making ground to a halt under the pressure of putting together wedding invitations, having a stall at a craft fair, and trying to live amongst increasingly high piles of scrappy mess.

Ridiculous, then, it may seem, that I've taken on another challenge - 'ABCs of Me' over at Scrapbook Challenges - but never fear, it's only for one or two letters. Hmmm, that sounds like cheating. I rather like to think of it as participating as much as I can and sharing what I have to share.

So, my challenge is this: we're on letter K. I've chosen the word KITCHEN as I have a love-hate relationship with kitchens. They are my favourite place, but I'm never happy with the one I have. I work in my kitchen (the table is my study) as it is bright with a high ceiling, and has a peacefully bubbling fish bowl in one corner and a dog in the other. The windowsill is lined with plants and herbs and flowers, and there are lots of trinkets and crafty things lying around. Yet, it is not, and cannot ever become, my dream kitchen. My dream kitchen has a bigger table, a view over a garden, red gingham, a fish bowl a dog AND a cat in the corners, and lots more besides. This is my layout with the invisible title (invisible because there was just nowhere to fit it in the end) 'Dreaming of a Country Kitchen'.

If you're joining in, you must scrap something about the relationship between you and your kitchen - how it makes you feel, how you wish it was, if it's a happy place and the heart of the home, or whether you long to be free from it. A plethora of emotions might spring up from this seemingly banal subject, but that's what I'd like to stimulate in those playing along. Oh, and as always there needs to be a twist. The twist for this challenge is... no photos. Not one. Not even a teeeeny tiny one!

Some close-ups of the page:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The challenge will be up very soon on Scrapbook Challenges - in the meantime go take a look at the previous 'ABCs of Me' challenges. You might want to get involved!

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!).

I Already Went Postal Once, Didn't I?

Ooops... I almost used the same post title as I did back here. (Hmmm... mini-challenge: come up with 52 different postcard-related blog post titles...)

This past week I've mostly had dancing on the brain. After a 3-week break, our lessons began again and although we could've been rusty and stressed, we did really well. The worst exchange, caused by me stopping every time we made a wrong move instead of trying to recover and carry on, ended with him giving me some advice: 'It's dog eat dog out there in the ballroom. Move, or get off the dance floor!'

So my postcard this week used bits from our teachers' flyer. I am liking paint rings at the moment, too:

 

Ooh, and just a quick note to say that I was given honourable mention for my submission to the Play Date Cafe's competition last week, meaning I get to sport this badge on my blog:

Fancy a Cuppa?

A little bit of a shake-up this week, so that I can enter a competition. I will post the Postcard a Week Challenge on Thursday; today, instead, I'm going for a cuppa at the Play Date Cafe. Come along for a cuppa and take part in a competition!

Their colour challenge this week was this beautiful combo:

And my response to the challenge:

 

I love this little cut-out part revealing another balloon in the background. I love this stamp set so much (it's Kaiser Craft's Up, Up and Away). And I love the Play Date Cafe's colour combo.

Anyone coming for a cuppa?

Postcard a Week Challenge

I have just received the news that the first postcard I made arrived safely at its destination. So, it looks like this plan is going to work.

Week Two's postcard is still on a 'thank you' theme. As I briefly mentioned a few posts ago, my cash-strapped younger brother hand-made our Christmas presents. All his own ideas, he went to the effort of researching his tasks; he improvised when things went wrong; and he even sat down at the sewing machine (and I checked all the seams of the bag he made - they are all very straight and very tidy).

I was, and still am, amazed at the boy. He has certainly kept this talent quiet. Anwyay, postcard number two is for him - to say thank you for the effort he spent on us.