Mellowbeing

More info on these postcards can be found on my Flickr page.

for the postcard swap.

Adhesive tape strips halved & Disney themed paper ribbon

for the postcard swap.

Adhesive tape strips & sharpies

Just a sneak peek into some new supplies I’ve acquired in the last couple of weeks. There may be a new Etsy shop popping up soon.. a jewelry shop of mellow awesomeness? We shall see… Ooo, the suspense ;)

All I know is that I’m uber excited to have all these jewelry findings so I can put to good use all the beads and buttons (yes, I said buttons) I’ve been hoarding for so long ..very, very soon.

Do you have any crafty supplies you’re just itching to use in an upcoming project?

This postcard is a lot more complicated than it looks like.  Sure, it may seem like I mysteriously drew lines and filled in shapes in certain areas.  What you can’t tell from this photo is that I started with several 8.5″ x 1″ strips of adhesive paper.

They are remnants from when KidMang made his promotional stickers and they turned to not fully print 8.5″ x 11″ sheets.  He gave me a couple of dozen of these strips and I wondered how I could apply them to the postcards.  Since they don’t quite work for a basket weave pattern, I just stuck them on in the same order without the weaving bit.

After this part, there were natural shapes formed between the different strips.  I chose bright colors to work with and patterns I usually doodle.   This isn’t the cleanest sketch but there are another 8 postcards to go to perfect.

Have you worked with a medium in an unexpected way that even you hadn’t originally thought of using?

A few weeks ago, I signed up for the “Postcard Swap 2010″ hosted by iHanna.   There’s still time to sign up (by Feb 8th) so if you haven’t, do so soon!

The swap consists of making 10 postcards to send 10 people. My personal challenge on this project is to not only make the 10 postcards in time but to only use materials I find or currently own.  I found these free advertisement postcards at a local restaurant.  They’re good for advertising Juliard.. and a postcard swap.  I’ll be covering these and other postcards I’ve found.  The other challenge is to figure out how to hide the original image well.

First postcard is basketweave pattern made of ribbon paper with paint chips as the borders.   The ribbon papers are meant for origami stars and the paint chips were once “borrowed” from Home Depot with crafty intentions in mind.

The paper is adorable and polka dotted.  Looking at it now, it kind of reminds me of a blanket.  If I could find this cloth, wouldn’t it make the cutest baby blanket?

Are any of you guys participating in the swap?

Last year, Terry Border from Bent Objects had his first book was published.  I’d been looking forward to it for a while and once I’d heard the news, I just had to get a copy.  Or two.  I know just the person who to give it to and I think it’d make a cute engagement gift, right?  Right.

Terry makes some of the awesomest bent wire sculptures with wit and humor – just the kind of art I like.  The book has a lot of photographs from the blog as well as new ones.  I say you should definitely look it up and get a copy!

I follow @terryborder on Twitter and saw he had a contest for a postcard!   An original handrawn postcard about “Liquid Courage”.  I mentioned how when prepping for my graduate thesis presentation, I had a glass (or two) of red wine.  I guess that was the best story since I won the postcard heh :)

When I was photographing the book w/o and then w/ the postcard, I noticed how the postcard fits just so and it makes the book cover take on a different meaning hah.