Project 21 Taa-Daa: Hand Made Postcards

I have recently come across a fantastic little project that's really caught my imagination. It's called Postcrossing. Essentially, you register and get given up to 5 addresses around the world to send a postcard to. When your 5 have been sent, you are then nominated to people wanting new addresses, and receive 5 postcards yourself, through the post, from anywhere in the world.

When I was a little girl I used to love having penpals - we used to write off to an organisation in Finland (I believe?) called the IPF and they would send back an address for you to correspond with. I was always very excited about getting new penfriends, but our letters would always dry up pretty quickly once we'd exchanged information about the obvious (usually boyfriends, siblings, pop stars, pets - that's about all we had to talk about.) Well this is kind of the same, except it's more of a penfriend one-night-stand. You put some information about the sort of postcard you'd like, and wait and see what comes through the door - and that's where the commitment ends. Perfect.

Charlie and I wre painting at the weekend and, as usual, I had been instructed to paint and wasn't sure what to do. So, inspired by Vanessa's brilliant blog, Do You Mind If I Knit, I started to have a go at some gift labels. These soon morphed into full on, multi craft, double sided postcards. Which I thought I would share with you.

One side is painted watercolour, either as a wash, or something more detailed. Voila:

The other side is embellished with felt, fabric and buttons:

I have so far sent one to the USA, one to France, and one to the Netherlands, Finland and Germany. I've added the blog address to all my cards, so "hello!" if any of you reading are Postcrossers!

Do you know the best thing? Someone has offered to pay me to make some for them! Pay! Me! I am so pleased about that, it's given me a real lift on an otherwise dark week.

It's cold here, very autumnal, and this week is the famous Hull Fair - the largest funfair in Europe. It comes to Hull for a week at the end of the season (picture below). We're hoping to take the children. I'll send a report next week.

Love to you all, and have a fantastic weekend

Claire x