Postcard: Wonderfulness

This one was very quick!  We were in Sacramento last week--and got our first Sacramento postcard back this week!  

I spent the week exploring solo, mostly (my husband was on business and busy during the day)--but I did have the chance to meet up with a friend I hadn't seen since 2014.  That 2014 meeting was our first, after meeting through the internet and the practice of mail art.  So it seemed wonderfully fitting that among the things we decided to do was to place the handmade cards I'd been creating in the evenings.  (We also went to the Crocker art museum, where I was delighted to find an Art-O-Mat!  After first hearing of them about 15 years ago, I was so excited to actually see one, to put my tokens in one of those refurbished 1970s cigarette machines and go home with tiny little pieces of art!)

This is the first Sacramento card that made it back; there are still 14 hidden somewhere in the library near Old Sac.

What tickled us about this card is that the finder added to the artwork on the front of the card, putting little hearts in each corner and extending the flourishes on the lettering with small dots!  Hm...maybe we should leave space on the front of some of our cards for artwork from the finders!

The finder wrote:
I found this great post card @ the down town Sacramento library.  My little girls go to a tweener book club there the last Thurs. of every month.  Their book selection this month was called Real Friends.  It's a graphic novel that helps tweeners navagate friendships.  Cheers!  Rebecca McDaniel

Boy...I remember those tween years and how fraught friendship was. I watched my own kids (well, four so far, two to go) go through it too, and most of them faced some struggles.  I looked up this book and now I need to see a copy in real life.  Graphic novels are cool--and this one is a memoir, which is even more intriguing. 

Thanks, Rebecca, for the return of our postcard and the book note!

Summer left our part of the world overnight.  Typically there's a good two weeks in which we run the air conditioning during the day and the heater at night and we just try not to think about the cost of cooling and then heating our house every 24 hours.  But this year, the temperatures dropped from the 90s to the 60s between a Monday and a Tuesday.

So when my husband and I visited Sacramento last week, we flew out on a chilly gray morning and arrived into a balmy, sunny midday.  While we were there, a postcard arrived back home with memories of our summer vacation and a warm message from the little family who had discovered it.

The finders wrote:
Our little family of 4 sat down as a family to read library books before bed.  Tonight we chose a "feel good" book called Thanks & Giving.  We opened the book & this card fell into our laps! Thanks for the smiles, joy, & excitement you contributed to our family tonight! 
The Stoddard family, Warrenton, Oregon 9/22/17

Stoddard family, thanks for sending it back!  We loved envisioning the scene you described.  The twins are 8 and they wondered how old your children are.  We also wondered if you might know the Moss family, whom we visited while on vacation! 

So much wonderful wondering! :)

Postcard feature: She sells seashells

Remember this old tongue-twister?  When I first heard it as a child, it defied not only pronunciation, but my sense of logic.  Who would SELL seashells by the seashore, when people could just pick their own up for free?

Since then, I've been to the seashore many times and I've found some lovely shells.  I've also found that people will definitely buy seashells by the seashore, from people who sell them there.

Here's the finder's note:
Found in a book at the Warrenton Community Library in Warrenton, OR! Nettie.

Thanks, Nettie, for sending it back to us!  This is one of my favorites. :)

Postcard feature: Rhodies

Sometimes I do a card that is, frankly, beyond my abilities.  I'm a calligrapher, not a watercolorist, and yet I love watercolor so much that I persist--not in learning watercolor, but in trying to use it with no clue what I'm doing.

So yeah, here is a really terrible watercolor of some rhododendrons, with some pretty lettering so you can tell what they are. :)  Fun fact--I did this lettering with a guerilla travel pen, a Nikko G nib hacked into a cheap fountain pen.  It was awesome to travel and still be able to do some great lettering without carrying a bunch of stuff with me and trying to decide where to put the bottle of ink!

Big thanks to the Moss family for hiding these cards for us!  I'm pretty sure the Moss family hid them.  Didn't I give them to the Mosses for hiding?  (I'm pretty sure we hid some in Astoria but the Mosses hid the ones in Warrenton...)

Wow, it's been a long time since June when we were at the Coast....At any rate, we did have some wonderful times with my friend Heather and her family of Mosses. :)

The finder's note says:

Greetings!  This turned up in the Warrenton Community Library some time in July.  Great idea! N L Calog.

Thanks for sending this one back to us!

Postcard feature: Doodles

 Another postcard from The Dalles!  This one was Jesse's artwork and he was tickled to get it back.  It was found by a member of the staff, whose note gave us a little more explanation as to the origin of the name "The Dalles."

The note says:
Hello from the staff of The Dalles Public Library!  We have enjoyed learning about your library project and are keeping any [sic] eye on your blog to see if any more postcards show up!

"The Dalles" is named for the rapids/rock carved by the river.  

--Corinne

Thanks so much, Corinne!  And thanks for sending Jesse's postcard to us!

Postcard: Dragons

Our first postcard from The Dalles came back today!  The artwork is by Jesse. This time the boys really wanted to try doing the entire postcard on their own, including the address.  They're at a point where that bit could go either way--clear and readable, or utterly confusing (we just got Jesse's letter to his San Antonio cousin returned last week because the poor postie couldn't read the zip code, and neither could I!)

But this postcard came back to us just fine, and it had a fun little note on the back.

The note says:  Hello!  I am from a small town called the Dalles.  The Dalles is in Oregon.  I think this postcard idea is a good one, so you can learn about others.  

Sincerely,
Milo [redacted]
age 12

Milo, thanks for returning our card!  I've removed your surname for safety.  In case you don't know, "redacted" is a legal word that means "this part was removed for security reasons."  

We love your name.  It's the name of a character from a favorite movie (Atlantis!), and also of a little black dog we had once.

And you're right--we learn neat things about other people doing this project!  Thanks for writing to us!

Postcard: Pine needles

Sometimes the cards we get back return to us with fun notes or comments...and sometimes they just return.  We're happy either way, though we love the notes.

In early May, I went with my mother-in-law to San Antonio so she could cuddle her 52nd grandbaby, a little boy born after three adorable little girls.  I had such fun making postcards with my little nieces Lily and Sadie!  I left the postcards with them to hide in their own library the next time they went, and I'm super excited for their pretty drawings to make their way back to me (and then back to them!).  It could happen any day now, because yesterday we got the first return from San Antonio: one of mine.