Tuesday 5 November 2013

Rainbow Gecko Gallery 2013 Ihannas Postcard Swap

Hi Readers, 
This November I am participating in the 2013 ihannas postcards swap. I make ten postcards to send out and swap with ten people from around the world. 
Here is the process of making my ten postcards.
I decided to make my postards 5 by 7, the reason for this is I was already trading happy art cards in that size and as I was cutting up a art paper pad this size had less waste. Using a craft knife and ruler I measured my cards and cut the out of heavy watercolour paper. 
Making the backgrounds
I use lightweight paper to cover my table while I paint and all my excees paint ends up on it, my clean up paper, this is what i use for my backgrounds. I sprayed this paper with my homemade watercolour sprays to add more colour. See previous tutorial.

Cleanup paper coloured with watercolour sprays

Making Butterfly Collage Stamps
I have been experimenting with making transparent collage stamps recently.see previous tutorial
I made a lot of these stamps as i wanted three for each postcard. 
Butterfly collage stamps on lunch wrap paper

Putting it all together
Once I had all the elements for my postcards it was time to put them together. 
First I glued my blank 5 by 7 watercolour paper to the back side of my watercolour sprayed cleanup paper and allowed it to dry. When dry I used a ruler and craft knife and cut of the excess paper.
The result was ten cards with colourful backgrounds
I then cut out all my collage stamp
I then used one of my favourite household stamps and printed a silver spiral print over the top of the colourful background.
I cut out all the butterfly collage stamps ( which took forever ) and using clear glue, carefully glued them onto the postcards. This is a bit tricky as the lunch wrap is very thin. Remember to glue on top as well to help with transparency. 
After all the cards had their butterflies I had to decide what ( if anything) to do next. I ended up leaving them so i could think about it and a few days passed before i come up with how to finish them. Itwas as simple as painting a black border.
These are my finished cards for the 2013 Ihannas Postcard Swap 
For more information about the ihannas postcard swap and to make sure you are ready for next years swap have a look here..
Thankyou
Sarah
Rainbow GeckoGallery

13 comments:

  1. Wow what a great idea. Absolutely love these, beautiful work!!

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  2. Sarah, loved seeing these develope on instagram over the week, and then reading the tutorial makes me want to make more postcards myself! Very inspirational, thanks!

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  3. Thank you for such wonderful comments i have realy loved making them and i love how theyve turned out :) thankyou for doing this swap i cant wait for next year:)

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  4. Your postcards look great! Thanks for sharing your process; I always like to see the "behind the scenes".

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  5. Wonderful! I know we all have fun making our postcards for #diypostcardswap but I also like to see the process and thoughts of the participants! Great jobb!

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  6. Dear Sarah,

    I enjoyed being a recipient of your creative work, thank you! It gives me greater appreciation to see how much fun the process was to create it.

    Regards,
    Neeti

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  7. I am happy to say that I received one of your beautiful postcards in the mail. I wrote a bit about the art swap on my blog and included your post card if you want to take a look. Thanks Patty

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