Correspondence on the Road

Shortly before my summer vacation, I received a postcard from Karen (from I Am Rushmore), which she sent to me from her vacation spot in Maine.  She prepared postcard backgrounds while she was still at home, then added pictures printed from her Pogo printer while at her destination.

That made me want to prepare postcards that I could send out from our Disney cruise.  I knew I wanted them to have a Disney theme, so I printed out lots of pictures from the Internet of mostly vintage Disney characters.

I glued them down to a large piece of white paper, using gloss gel medium. 

I then cut 4x6 inch postcards from the page. Because I had criss-crossed the images all over, the layout of each ultimate postcard was left up to chance. In most cases, they looked pretty good.

Then I decided to add "Wish You Were Here!" to the front using red Dymo tape.  I couldn't very well haul my Dymo label maker with me onto the cruise ship, so I pre-made that part, as well.  I also added some decorative tape here and there while I was at it.

I even wrote everyone's names and addresses on the back of each postcard while I was still at home, which kept me from having to take an address book or write a list to bring along.

I wrote the personal messages during our trip while we were in Skagway, Alaska, but did not have them with me the one time we had access to a post office!  I wasn't sure if they could be sent with standard postcard postage, so I waited until I got home to mail them.  It turns out, I could have sent them off with a regular postcard stamp via a post box.  Live and learn!

While it would be lots of fun to create postcard art during the course of a vacation, sometimes a vacation schedule or packing restrictions just doesn't allow for that.  In those cases, I think it's fun to plan ahead for some handmade correspondence on the road!