Special Delivery

Back over Labor Day weekend when my mom and sister were here, they helped me prep another little project for our walls: postcard prints. I got this idea from a display in the Kate Spade store in Georgetown - they had a print of a bunch of old Penguin book covers, and I loved the colorful, graphic nature of the print. I happened upon these postcards on amazon and decided to try a DIY version for myself.

As my mom and I were sorting through the postcards to pick our favorites for the frame, I realized that I liked too many of them. So I divided my faves into two piles - "classic" covers and the more "artistic" covers. Once I had a layout I liked, I knew an approximate size for the frame and mat to make it happen. We went to Michael's custom framing desk and drove this guy nuts as he helped us design the mat with 25 holes for all of these postcards. He finally finished and showed me the final mock-up - it looked great! And according to him, would only cost $130. Say what?! He wasn't very happy with me when I said that was out of the budget.

Then I found some giant mats in the frame aisle to cut out your own. That sounded like way too much work, so I also got some double-stick tape and the frames to go with the mats. Everything was at least 50% off, and I think for 2 frames, 2 mats, and the tape, it was about $50. Pretty good considering just the custom mats for both pieces would've been $260!

To put it all together, I just measured and remeasured, then marked with a pencil where the edges of each card should be. I used two pieces of tape on the back of each card, it was very easy. Each one probably took me about an hour to measure and tape.

The finished products:

The "Classic" Covers

The "Artistic" Covers

I love them! We have one hanging on the landing up to the loft and one in the study. Obviously, I went with one cream mat to match the classic covers, and one black mat, which I thought would make the covers "pop." I think I like the black mat best, but I love them both!

This is an easy and inexpensive project for some large, high-impact art. I'll leave you with the little story written on my favorite cover (bottom right hand corner of the "artistic" covers):

"There Must Be a Pony!:
Once upon a time, a psychiatrist had two sons, age 8. One was an incurable pessimist - the other was an incurable optimist. Their father became alarmed and decided to try an experiment. Christmas Eve he filled the pessimist's room with everything a boy could wish for, and he filled the optimist's room with horse manure. Early next morning, he went to observe their reactions. The pessimist sat amongst the toys, books, clothes, sporting goods - just sat there - eyeing the presents suspiciously, trying to figure out what the catch was. The father sighed and walked towards the other boy's room. When he peeked in the door, he saw him standing waist-high in the middle of all the manure, shoveling it up in the air over his head, and laughing like a fiend! "Son," the father said, "what's the matter with you? What are you so happy about?" The boy turned, still laughing, and replied "Gee Dad, I figure with all this horse shit, there must be a pony!"