Creative challenge: Let's make postcards

Because creativity (and I) need a good deadline to get things done around here.

Every spring and fall I host a DIY Postcard Swap via my blog, and I have been doing this for over ten years by now. If you haven’t heard about it yet, where have you been hiding? Just kidding. You are not the only one, but we do have a great community going and many people sign up twice every year to swap handmade postcards from all over the world. And I am so happy that you are here now so I can let you know what it is, and invite you to join us!

This is your invitation to join us. I hope you will accept!

You are invited to join the swap today!

When you sign up you will be creating 10 handmade postcards and then when the month is up, you will receive an email from me with 10 addresses, both domestic and international, depending on where you live (most swappers are in the US) but we also have swappers in Australia and Europe, and even a some from Africa and Asia. Anyone can sign up, just as long as you can make ten handmade postcards on time. That’s it.

And I know you can do it!

On my site you will find a free postcard backside to print, a postcard tracker and many videos with DIY Postcard inspiration, both made by me and my community, if you need it.

Deadline for Creativity: June 1st

You can sign up for the DIY Postcard Swap spring until June 1st 2024 - after that I will close the sign up period for this round. A few days after that, when you have your address list, you will send out your handmade, beautiful postcards. That makes four weeks to create your postcards from today - so you have plenty of time for experimentation!

I love to have a deadline for my creativity at times, because it helps my stay accountable and do what I really love, which is creating something fun and mixed media at my desk. And I hope a deadline will light your fire / encourage you too!

Both artists and beginners are welcome to join the swap, as I believe that everyone who wants to be creative should be, and can. It’s for fun y’all!

If you’re new to this, please read through the rules & information on the swap page, and feel free to also check out the FAQ and inspiration posts on my blog. There you will be able to read all about size, materials, mail art and how to create a handmade postcard in your own style.

Click the button to learn more and join today:

Do you want to know more?

I won’t bore you with the entire back story of the DIY Postcard Swap, or how much I love creating mixed media series to send out as happy mail and how it has become this big part of my own life - because it’s in the book I wrote, DIY Postcard Ideas (so far only available via my site and in digital form, but I really want to make it into tangible form some day soon) and you can read it there or on my blog if you want to. But like I already have mentioned, it’s a great community of creatives that come together to send mail art in the form of DIY Postcards. I love it all, and hope you will too. Because t

PS: You can get the book about postcard ideas at a good price when you sign up, as a bonus, or on its own of course. There is a small fee to join, to make this big swap sustainable for me to host year after year.

New this year is that, if you want to create 20 postcards to swap, I have added an option in there for you to do that without signing up twice.

And don’t forget that even when you have doubts: Creativity is for everyone and Everyone is Creative (encouraging video by yours truly).

This was sent via Substack

In case you missed my email yesterday, where I explain why I am on Substack now and what the platform is about, you can read it here:

If you got that newsletter yesterday in your mail, fear not - I will not send Newsletters twice in a week again anytime soon. More likely, I will write one in two or three weeks, or maybe not until this fall when the next swap comes around. So stay subscribed to make sure you hear from me again. When I send another Newsletter out is to be decided. We’ll see when that happens. We will see (my new mantra of not over-promising anything).

If you would like to help spread the word about the DIY Postcard Swap, please share this Newsletter/this graphic - via Notes or any way you prefer. I’d be most grateful, and if you know someone in need of more creativity in their life - let them know about the swap as well, and maybe they will be grateful too.

Cheers until next time,

Take care and stay creative my friends.