Hey Mr. Postman....

......bring me some postcards!  Do people on vacation still do that?  Nah, I think not.  We just aim our phones at random monuments and send them to torture our stay at home friends.  Well, to put an end to such modern but less than artistic practices, I recently hosted a postcard swap with some of my buds.

Everyone made cards depicting either real or imagined vacations, personalized the backs, got them to me, and I assembled them into books with my trusty Cinch.  I also made covers for the books, and now that everyone has received theirs (well, almost everyone, so you know who you are and if you want to be surprised, go to another blog) I'll share them with you.  It was a fun project to do this summer, and it reminded me of so many trips when I was younger and the only way to communicate with the folks back home was by mail.

Here is the front cover that I made, using Tim Holtz paper and stamps, tissue tape, a few other odds and ends, and covered with my new favorite supply, Ranger's Glue N Seal.

I'd love to show you the backs of the cards but I doubt my friends would appreciate seeing their names and addresses all over the internet.  Keeping privacy intact, here are the cards:

 love the bathing beauty!

 wish you could see all the shine and dimension under the lighthouse

 fantastic way to represent the sun!

 dreamy and romantic, just like Paris

 she really didn't go round the world a la Phineas Fogg, but sounds like fun!

 gorgeous stamping, and the blue star marks Alaska, the destination of this cruiser

 some people have out of control imaginations, as this card, commemorating a

trip to Idahopia attests.  The happy vacationer had a spud-tacular time.

 greetings from one of my favorite places, England

this one is mine, since I didn't go anywhere this summer (not that I think

being in NYC is any kind of hardship, LOL)

this swapper made cards of every place on her wish list to visit, and I

was lucky enough to receive Paris

The back cover was done similarly to the front, and is a good example of turning lemons into lemonade.  I did everyone else's book without a problem, but when it came to my own (guess I was tired) I punched the holes in the back cover on the wrong side.  Look how I solved that problem:

Sometimes ribbons are your best friend.