Hello Friends! This year I am once again going to participate in InCoWriMo and I am bringing you along for the journey.
What is InCoWriMo you ask.... It stands for International Correspondence Writing Month and it's a challenge to encourage everyone to write a hand written note, postcard, greeting card, etc. each day in the month of February AND deliver them to someone. They can be hand delivered, secretly delivered, posted in the mail for the snails to deliver or sent by owl mail. And it doesn't even have to be anyone you know. This is a great way to pick up pen-pals as there are many web-sites and groups that encourage and arrange pen pals.
So each week I'm going to focus on one particular aspect of correspondence. This week I'm going to focus on postcards! Of course you can send commercially made postcards. Surprisingly enough it's getting more and more difficult to find these types of postcards unless you live in a tourist area. I don't - I live in Small Town USA (think one stoplight, central square, that's about it. No postcards to be had so I thought it would be fun to make my own using peg stamps!
First there are some specifications from the post office that you have to keep in mind when creating your own postcards...
1) Standard First Class Rate Post cards must measure between (smallest) - 3 1/5" x 5" (.007 thick) up to 4 1/4" x 6" (.016 thick).
That being said, I have no idea how you measure how thick your paper is. It's not like you can measure .007 on a ruler. I'm going with 2 ply Bristol cardstock, more about that below.
You can make your postcards larger but they will charge extra...possibly the cost of mailing a package. I'm sure this depends on your post office though. I've found they aren't all run the same despite all of their rules and regulations.
2) Cost of sending postcards...Domesitc - $0.36 (standard) - $0.55 (oversized) or International - $1.20 (standard) - I couldn't find a price for the oversized postcards.
So there you have the technical stuff. Now I wanted to share a set of postcards I made! I decided to use the
Bunny Garden set of stamps as a jumping off point for this set of cards. I then added other peg stamps in my stash. I used a double layer of Bristol cardstock for these postcards. I started off with one layer but it didn't feel beefy enough so I added a second layer. This worked out great because it hid all of the messy backs. Doesn't matter how careful I am I end up with extra ink somewhere - LOL!! The double layer felt much better for going through the mail.
All of these cards were made using VersaFine Clair inks.
I did a bit of water coloring on some of the cards with Memento Dye Inks and a waterbrush.
I went with Spring scenes because I'm tired of winter - LOL!!
What do you think? Are you going to join in the fun?
Just starting. I did not know it was something that takes preparation with calendars and finding addresses etc...that being said, Shall I use the addresses I saw in another blog post? Do I first submit my address? Is there a special code to put in the missive to identify myself as a participant? Exactly, how does this work?
ReplyDeleteHi Kanisie - No preparation with calendars and as to finding addresses there are many ways to go about it. The official InCoWriMo blog has a listing of people who would like to receive mail https://incowrimo.org/2021/01/incowrimo-address-exchange-2021/ but there are lots of different groups to find pen pals or simply post a request on FB for friends who would like to receive mail. That's what I've done in the past and it worked great. If you participate I would suggest writing InCoWriMo on your correspondence to show that's what it is. As far as how it works, just write a message, card, letter and send it off. Easy as that :)
DeleteReally like these postcards. Think I'll do some up for my grandkids-they love getting stuff in the mail.
ReplyDelete