2018 Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap!

I participated in Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art Postcard swap again this year. It's always fun to receive something other that bills and junk mail in your mailbox. Click over to Kat's blog post here to see a wrap of the swap including the number of participants and countries from which cards were swapped. As for me, I couldn't resist sharing sweet Denver, so above is the postcard I shared.

The first card I received, above, is from Tammy in Georgia, a lovely landscape photo with one my favorite subjects: cows! We're doing a side swap as well so I'll share another one of her cards once I receive all my side swap cards!

Next I received the card above from Lynne in North Carolina, a beautiful landscape painting!

Next arrived this photo postcard above all the way from Louise in France. On the back of the card, she explained that these boats were meant to carry port wine along the Douro River in Portugal.

This card of a pretty painted tray arrived next, above. The artist did not include her name or location, but she did share a great quote: "Accept what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be..."

This very fun mixed media postcard above arrived next, from Stephanie in Southwest Florida! I really love the vibrant colors in this one.

And the last card to arrive was the card our host Kat created, above. The message on the back says, "Creativity takes courage" ~ Henri Matisse, with a note that we all proved ourselves courageous by participating! I always enjoy this swap, looking forward to what will show up in my mailbox! You can check out Kat's blog here.

An InLinkz Link-up

2017 Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap

I participated in Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap again this year. I love doing postcard swaps! It's always fun to get a fun little unexpected something in your mailbox instead of bills and junk mail! For my submissions, I created some postcards out of some of my shelter photos and added in quotes with them. Above is a dog from the Tallahassee shelter named Didgeradoo. He was such a cool dog!

Below are the other two I did, one a group shot from playgroup at the Jacksonville shelter and the other my all time favorite shelter dog love, Chuck. Chuck was the first shelter dog to completely steal my heart, and he's had it ever since. I think of him often!

Below is the first card I received in the mail. Kat spreads out the mailing do you don't get them all at the same time. More to look forward to! This card came from Deanie Houghtaling in Phoenix, Arizona. It is of a carousel horse in Jardin du Laxembourg in Paris! One day, I will travel to Paris.  One day...

Next, I received this beautifully drawn zentangle card from Linda Yeatman in Reston, Virginia, below. I love the black and white contrast.

Next came this beautiful photo from Chrisann Risser. Chrisann and I emailed back and forth a bit, and here's what she told me about her photo: "That photo was taken in December 2016 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, where I was born and raised. I went home to visit my Dad. Lunenburg is a fishing village on the Atlantic and the colour of the buildings on the waterfront are red so that is what you are seeing in the background. And the photo is of wild rose buds." Beautiful!

Next I received this beautiful page from an art journal from Lorraine Rush, below. She did not share on her postcard where she was from, but her art is beautiful!

Then came this lovely little painting from Sheila Delgado from Prescott Valley, Arizona. I visited the little town of Prescott years ago when I went out that way for a friend's wedding. Very cute town! Thanks, Sheila!

Last I received the card from Kat herself, our wonderful hostess in Portland, Oregon. I wasn't quite sure what the correct orientation was supposed to be, but I liked it best this way! I guess when I see Kat's reveal, I'll know if I was correct! Thanks to Kat for coordinating this swap every year. It's so much fun to send little pieces of your own art out into the world and receive such beautiful little things back.

An InLinkz Link-up

Best Shot Monday: Fun Postcard Art!

Hi there! I hope you are well! I know it's been a while since I've checked in here! I took the whole month of January off from creating so I could catch my breath and get back into the swing of things for the new year. I've been gearing up to participate in a couple fun swaps and created this image and a few others for Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art swap. I've been wanting to create some fun postcards using my shelter dog images just to be able to brighten someone's day and encourage adopting from your local shelter.  Having fun with these!    

Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap: Done!

Last year when I received my card deck in the mail from Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap, the redheads immediately went rummaging through, trying to steal all the cards I received! So this year, I told them that if they wanted to receive cards, they had to make their own deck to send to others!

Above are some samples from Sarah's deck. She went with a fun quote stamp that said, "If you are feeling blue, try painting yourself a different color." Love that!

Above are some samples from Olivia's deck. The stamp quote she chose is "Count your rainbows, not your thunderstorms." Good message for my emotional girl.

And lastly, here are samples from my deck. I stuck with our family awesomeness theme with a "Stay Awe Some" stamp I found on Etsy. If you'd like one of your own, it was created by A Sensible Habit. This is my second time participating in this swap, and I can't wait to see what little beauties arrive back in my mailbox! Here are the cards I created last time around.

Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap

For the first time this year, I participated in Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap. What was a little bit different about this postcard swap was that instead of making individual, hand-crafted postcards, the goal of this was to help you learn how to have your art professionally printed onto a postcard.  I just so happened to have recently had one of my photographs printed on postcards to pop into packages when I get an order, so this gave me a good excuse to get more images created onto postcards!  Above are the postcards I sent!  Clockwise from top left are my 1947 Chevy Firetruck, Peeking, Dandelion Wishes,  1966 Mustang Pony, and Smile.

Above are the beautiful postcards I received from all over the world! Clockwise from top left are postcards from Anton in Portland, Oregon; Imelda from Portland, Oregon; Kat (the organizer) from Portland, Oregon; Judith from Portland, Oregon; Debra from Grant, Florida; and Sharon, all the way from New Zealand.  This was a fun easy swap that I really enjoyed.  It's always nice to find something other than bills and junk mail in your mail box!  You can click here for a blog hop of other participants and click here for a wrap up of this year's swap. 

Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap

Happy New Year!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season.  I finished my 52 card deck for Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap over the holidays and mailed them to Jessica the Monday before New Year's.  I shrunk down the photo and quote cards I made for the iHanna swap and then added more bling to them since they were not mailing as postcards this time.  Rhinestones always add great bling! These are playing card size, approximately 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches each. Unfortunately, these are currently lost in the mail, so Jessica and I are praying they show up soon. As luck would have it, the receipt with the tracking information is the ONE receipt I can't find. Say a prayer they arrive at Jessica's door or back at mine soon!  

iHanna Postcard Swap 2014

I'm woefully behind (yes, I realize this is an ongoing theme...), but I've finally finished my postcards for this year's iHanna swap!  They are mailing Monday!  I've only received about half of mine, so I'm glad to know I'm not the only one behind.  This year, I decided to use my photographs as the background, create a quote digitally on top on the photo and then add little bits of paper collage on top. Half of these are going to international recipients in Australia, The Netherlands, Germany and Canada, and the other half will be traveling to various places in the U.S.  Making the most of my photos, I'm doing this same process for Jessica Brogan's Inspirational Card Deck Swap. :-) These were inspired by artist Mae Chevrette.  I am totally enamored with her work and recently bought this print for my apartment in Tallahassee.

iHanna International Post Card Swap!

I try to participate in iHanna's International PostCard swaps as postcards are easy to make, and it's so much fun to receive little bits of postcard happiness from all over the world.  This time around, I committed to just using up whatever was on my workspace in front of me and knocked out all ten of them in about an hour.  The backgrounds were already done, left over from another project, so that gave me a good start!  My postcards went to Jackson Heights, New York; Petersburg, Alaska; Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Gurnee, Illinois; Rotorua, New Zealand; Radcliff on Trent, Notts, UK; Marouba, New South Wales, Australia; Helsingborg, Sweden; and Inverness-Shire, Scotland. I liked that funky little fish so much I used him twice! Which one is your favorite?