Postcard Mania

I've been busy this week making postcards. A few of them have gone out via Post-Crossing, a few others are for mail-art swaps. and the rest are for use in the near future, for when the urge to send mail-art strikes. I love making postcards and then sending them off into the world. I like to imagine that each person who encounters them along their way, from the mail man who picks them up to the people who handle and sort them in the various postal warehouses they pass through, might stop a moment to view them, perhaps ponder them or smile at them before sending them on their merry way. It probably isn't true, but it's a nice little fantasy I have.

Post-Crossing has been exceptionally fun for a lover of postcards. Not only do I get to send out as many as I wish, but each one is assigned a unique id alpha-numeric code so that the receiver can log it in once it arrives. Once logged I get to find out when they arrived, how long it took and read the comments made by the receiver. For each one I send out that gets logged back in I receive one in return. Fun for me no matter how you look at it!

I've also been busy altering some clothing. A denim jacket that once belonged to my mother has undergone a complete transformation. It's been dyed, bleached, stamped, cut, sewn and painted. The result is a stunning, funky jacket that I can't wait to show off. I also painted a pair of jeans with skulls, done free-hand with paint pens. These too are fun and funky. So much so that I just may submit them to Altered Couture just to see if they get picked for publication.

I love altering clothes. It's something I have always done. Long before it became the popular thing to do. Ages before books & magazines geared toward altering clothing, creating wearable art or any of the other catch phrases now in use, were even thought of. Am I ahead of my time when it comes to these things? I don't think so. For what bored teenage girl hasn't taken out a pen or marker and doodled all over her jeans or created a jeans purse? I know all the girls I hung out with did it. Granted, it was usually me who instigated the happenings, but that's just because I was more fearless than they were and was always the one to say, "Hey, let's do such and such!" before anyone else would think to say it. Or maybe I am ahead of my time. I'll go with that because it makes me sound so revolutionary....