Handcrafted postcards

My favorite souvenirs aren’t mass produced. They’re things like a scarf from a street fair or wildflowers from the Rockies.

I didn’t do much shopping on my SeaSFBlog trip, but I did get a chance to stop by the Fremont Sunday Market. The market is held rain or shine, which is good, because, you know, Seattle does have 58 days a year of sunshine.

One vendor was called Fun Junk: Piles of Old Stuff. True to their word, the tables held mounds of skeleton keys, patches, watch faces, and stacks of what looked like miniature paintings. It turned out they basically were. The owner finds vintage paintings in thrift stores, cuts them into sections, and stamps “POST CARD” across the back. The result is these beautiful, one-of-a-kind, mailable works of art.

It made me think about what else I could pick up along the way (when I’m not in Seattle) to make impromptu postcards. Travel brochures? Booklet covers? Maps? Gift boxes or packaging? It might be a good idea to pack some labels to stick over items without a blank space to write on.

You could mail pages of an on-the-go travel journal back to yourself and bind them together when you get back. Or mail a note to a friend.

As long as you meet the post office mailing guidelines for the country you’re in and make sure your postcard/letter/package is sturdy enough to handle shipping, you can really get creative with what you mail!

Resources

Fun Junk: locations | online shop (awesome typewriter key jewelry but no postcards at the moment)

USPS mailing guidelines: domestic | international

Creative mail inspriation: “Happy mail” by Giver’s Log

September 21, 2013September 20, 2013

Paper bag journal: part 1(ish)

The idea of collecting trip mementos in paper bags has stuck with me since I saw it in Anna Corba’s Vintage Paper Crafts awhile ago, and I wanted to give it a try during our Colorado trip this summer.

Last year when we went on our Epic California Road Trip, we picked up a postcard for each day and wrote what we did on it. However, this time, I knew we couldn’t rely on always being somewhere with postcards for sale. Instead, I jotted down my notes about each day on brown paper sacks and tucked the day’s mementos (maps, cards, travel information, etc.) inside. I also collected a flower for (almost) every day to press during the trip and clip onto the pages later.

As we were getting ready to leave, I threw a stack of paper bags, pens, scissors and glue sticks into another paper bag. While Phillip drove, I numbered the bags 1-7 with the day of the week and wrote the date on each. Before I went to bed, the next day on the road, or whenever I found a moment, I would write about the day and doodle around the number with something related to what we did.

My notes got shorter toward the end of the trip, but the point was to write something – not to write a novel. I brought scrapbooking supplies, but I didn’t end up using them. The days were so packed it was all I could do to keep up with my basic journalling. I decided I could put things together when I got home and just kept the items I collected (except the flowers I was pressing) in each day’s bag.

If you wanted to give this a try, here’s what you need to create your own paper bag scrapbook:

A paper lunch bag for each day of your trip, plus one to store them all in. (Okay, maybe a few extra, just in case.)
Nice, archival-safe pens for journalling, doodling, or simply making a list of interesting things you saw that day.

Optional:

Clothespins or clips to keep bags together and/or clip things on outside of bags
Additional scrapbooking supplies (scissors, glue stick or double stick tape, etc.).
If you plan to collect a leaf or flower for each day, check out How to press flowers while traveling.

Now we’re back, and I have a record of what we did each day, a book full of flowers being pressed, and the other odds and ends I picked up along the way sorted by day.

Phillip says that if I never got the rest done, we’d still have a nice record of our trip. Me being me, I want it all finished and awesome. I’m still want to print more photos, weed out the bag contents, put the pressed flowers in clear plastic bags and attach them to each page. I don’t have a great track record with finishing scrapbook projects. But I’m crossing my fingers this post will have a Part 2!

June 4, 2013June 8, 2013

Confession

Is it too early for a confession? I realize this is only post #2 of the Travelcraft Journal project, and we’re still getting to know each other. But let’s build this thing on honesty.

Before anyone gets the idea that I’m some sort of crafting goddess (you were thinking that, right? anyone? Bueller?), I should set the record straight on something. I’ve never finished an entire scrapbook or travel journal. Photos stuck into album sleeves, sure. But that’s it.

Yep. I know. Shocking.

I’ve done scrapbooky things – made pages, sketched layouts, obsessively kept ticket stubs and other bits and pieces that should totally go into a scrapbook. But completing an entire book? That hasn’t happened. (Yet.)

scrapbooking paper covering table — This is not a mess. It’s a process. Somewhere here is the color of my trip. I just need to spread everything out so I can find it.

One thing that’s gotten me closer, though, is not waiting until I’m back from a trip to start scrapbooking. I take along some cardstock, nice pens, and a glue stick or double-sided tape, and get a jump start on journaling and putting those little bits and pieces together, while we’re still on the road.

Now, I’ve seen Smash books and other scrapbooks you fill in as you go. Love the idea, but – maybe it’s the designer in me (or the perfectionist) – I’m really into picking out paper colors that match my day, choosing the format, and all that good stuff. (That design control freakiness probably doesn’t help with the whole not-getting-the-scrapbook-done thing either.)

I thought this was an original idea until I checked with Google.

Me: Best idea evar! Scrapbooking As You Go! Bet I’m the first person this has ever occurred to, right?!

Google: Nope. There are 5 people doing exactly that on Page One alone. Plus 30,096 other things that are vaguely related that you should definitely know about.

Me: Oh. I guess I’m not as original as I thought. I should still totally buy the domain name for scrapbookasyougo.com, though, right?

Namecheap: Absolutely.

Ok, that just got real geeky real fast. Anyway. Even though other people did independently come up with the idea, I still embraced it. In fact, the whole concept of Scrapbooking As You Go was a big part of last year’s craft blog idea. I was planning to launch it right before our Epic California Roadtrip, and document the process of scrapbooking about the trip during the trip. (Uber meta.)

While I did scrapbook during (and after) the trip, I still haven’t gotten the whole thing finished. And I only published one post on the craft blog.

But I held onto the question of how to bring what you enjoy doing into your busy life, and that’s a big part of this project.

Now I just need to finish a scrapbook. Maybe I should just start making them smaller.