December Gift-Making...Postcards

Here is sweet gift that Toucie made to give to Naya and Sodie...she is hoping that when they are off at college they will think of her occasionally and drop her a line. (To that end, we actually stamped and addressed these postcards with Toucie's name and address to help facilitate the desired outcome).

We started with the heaviest watercolor paper we had on hand, drawing lines to divide it into nine 4 x 6 sections. We chose 4 x 6 because that worked well with the paper we were using, but you have flexibility. Here are the U.S. postal standards for postcard sizes. I used masking tape (blue painters tape is even better) to mask off each individual section on the paper...this will leave a clean, white frame around each postcard when done. (If you use regular masking tape you run the risk of tearing the paper when you try to pull it off later...so I use a trick that Mado taught me: press each strip of masking tape to your clothing before pressing it to the paper...this reduces the stickiness just enough.)

Then Toucie let fly with the paints! This is watercolor paint on dry paper (not our usual wet-on-wet technique...we needed the tape to stick and also wanted the back of the paper to stay clean and white)

Once the paint was dry we pulled off the tape.

The paper we used was not heavy enough for my taste...I was worried they wouldn't hold up in all the postal machinery. I decided to use these laminating sheets to help make the postcards sturdier. I just laid the adhesive sheets on the painted side of the paper we had made and used a rolling pin to press it on very firmly.

Then all that was left to do was cut the paper up into cards following the pencil lines I had marked back at step one. Then we made some lines on the clean white side to show where to write the address and place the stamp. We stored them under heavy books until gifting time to press them nice and flat.
I love the way these came out...so pretty!