Hobby Quest

whorevidal: In 1901, the U.S. Government granted the use of the...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:05:55 -0400

In 1901, the U.S. Government granted the use of the words “Post Card” to be printed on the undivided back of privately printed cards and allowed publishers to drop the authorization inscription previously required. As in earlier eras, writing was still limited to the front.

I keep meaning to design a postcard back for my own cards. I’m thinking maybe a physical rubber stamp so I can use it on cards of all sizes.

Inspirational.

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 19:05:34 -0400

Inspirational.

I drive by this yellow field daily. I like it.

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 01:17:33 -0400

I drive by this yellow field daily. I like it.

Photo

Sun, 08 Jul 2012 01:15:48 -0400

Making myself LOL.

Sat, 09 Jun 2012 15:47:01 -0400

Making myself LOL.

This one from CRS’s collection was just too goofy.

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:44:00 -0400

This one from CRS’s collection was just too goofy.

Really liked this card from Sent & Received. Here’s my...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:54:41 -0400

Really liked this card from Sent & Received. Here’s my version. His is a little sunnier, like the layout though.

Photo

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 13:29:16 -0400

Photo

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:42:24 -0400

Some more scans of the cards I inherited from Grandpa Smith....

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:39:00 -0400

Some more scans of the cards I inherited from Grandpa Smith. Really enjoying the goofy fonts, colors, borders, shadows, etc. Very inspiring to me!

Tissue Paper Magic

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:36:56 -0400

Goodness, I love tissue paper. I made these super simple tissue paper roses for my mum’s birthday. I used twigs from our yard wrapped in green tissue for the stems and little balls of white paper glued to sticks for the mock baby’s breath. Pretty fun stuff. The sad part is that I gave them away so now I need to make more for me!

Note hilarious hours of operation. I cannot wait to go,...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:31:00 -0400

Note hilarious hours of operation. I cannot wait to go, it’s been on my calendar for a while now.

Nothing too special going on here. I found the quotes around the...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:20:00 -0400

Nothing too special going on here. I found the quotes around the caption to be the best part.

I was particularly fond of the wobble-text. I chose to use a...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:15:00 -0400

I was particularly fond of the wobble-text. I chose to use a more obnoxious yellow for this obnoxious card.

Scans

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:14:05 -0400

I’ve been scanning some of the postcards from Abe’s grandfather that I find particularly inspiring. Here’s the one from my previous post (supplemented by many other images I found online of a similar style), and here’s the one for my next post (very literal).

Photo

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:36:23 -0400

That feeling

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:28:00 -0400

Last night I stayed up until 5:15 AM working on an art project, which is something I haven’t done in ages. It’s really a crazy feeling when you realize hours have gone by and the sun is coming up and you left the cat outside to fend for himself and you’ve spent hours completely focused on one thing. And then you tell yourself you should probably go to bed, but you still don’t because working on things is fun. It felt good. I did try to get to sleep around 6 am but was fairly wired. My cat kneaded me, that helped.

I’m nervous to post the thing I spent so much time on, seeing as it’s probably not terribly impressive. But I am a VERY beginner at photo manipulation and layouts and such — most of the time spent on this was Googling how to do things… here’s a glimpse at my Google history between 2:11 and 3:11 AM.

I’ve been slowly teaching myself how to use GIMP (It’s FREE); I like using it but I don’t find it very intuitive.

I will post the postcard I made later on when I have another computer. For some reason (it’s crap) my computer can never upload anything to Tumblr or Facebook.

Hopefully it will be part of my on-going project to make a collection of Hornby-themed postcards for my own enjoyment. I’m feeling particularly inspired to work on this because of Abe’s grandfather who passed away this week. Charles Reis Smith was a big mail-phile (invented word, I think!) like myself. He sent letters to his friends very frequently and when he was in the hospital I was blown away by the huge number of cards and letters he received every day. This week Abe and his dad started to clean out CRS’s house on Loon Lake and found a huge stash of postcards he had collected from all over; most were from Florida but there were also a bunch from Hong Kong, Jerusalem, and many US cities (I don’t think he ever traveled to Hong Kong or Jerusalem so I’m not sure how he got them). Abe gifted the stack of cards to me, and I couldn’t be happier ; it seems the most appropriate thing I could inherit from CRS seeing as I’m not really family. The stack has probably no real value monetarily or to the other members of the Smith family, but to me it is a real treasure. Anyway, I’ve been inspired by a lot of the styles of the cards and I plan to mimic some of the themes to create Hornby cards.

Photo a day April - Week 1

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:23:12 -0400

5. Tiny items in shadowbox.

1. Reflection. I'm a passenger.

2. Color. Paper flowers.

3. Mail. My mailbox.

4. Abraham makes me happy.

6. Lunch.

7. Shadow. With pond scum.

Photo a day April - Week 1

Progress? Lack of?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:20:21 -0400

I haven’t been very hobby-ful lately. I gave up on crochet rather quickly but did take up knitting again, which I learned to do sometime in middle school. I am making 2 neck warmers, both pretty goofy looking as I am very good at losing track of what number stitch I am on. I will give them to my Dad and boyfriend or someone that won’t mind/notice. I am glad that the knitting is going somewhere and I have two projects under way. I don’t find it to be the most rewarding hobby, though, as I mostly just do it when I sit and watch TV for hours which makes me feel fairly worthless. And it’s springtime now so I need to do something a bit more out-doorsy.

Anyhow, I think I will try to do this for April:

Photo

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:42:00 -0500