photography

DIY: Make Your Own Postcards

| terriaw

I love postcards! I love collecting them, sending them and receiving. But they are hard to find these days. So I bought a kit from Amazon with adhesive templates for making my own postcards.

I’ve been using my own photographs to create a series of Weekend Exploring postcards, which I share each Friday. So I thought it would be fun to use those digital postcards to create actual postcards I can put in the snail mail. I used Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper, which looks amazing on my Epson Artison 1430 printer.

making postcards from photos

Here’s how to make them yourself:

  • Print two postcards per page.
  • Trim them to 6″ wide by 4″ high.

making postcards

  • Peel off the top part of the adhesive postcard back.
  • Align it with the top of the photograph.
  • Finger-press the top edge to secure.
  • Peel the rest of the adhesive off, and finger-press the rest of the template to seal the photo and eliminate any bubbles or creases.

weekend exploring postcard

It’s a great excuse for taking more photos and improving my photography skills. I can already tell making my own postcards is going to be addicting!

Terri

Thankful Friday and Another New Routine

| terriaw

Thank goodness it’s Friday! At the end of yet another intense week and adjusting to another new routine, it feels good to take a moment to share the things I’m thankful for from the past week as a way to appreciate the big things and the small things.

1. I am thankful to be learning more about photography with my photography class, which began earlier this week. I am starting to understand what aperture and shutter speed mean on my camera, along with all the other settings that can be adjusted for the best possible pictures.

2. I am appreciating the importance of composition in all things, from taking a picture to drawing with agraphite pencil.

3. I am thankful for lunch with one of my longest-lasting friends. We live close to each other, yet we don’t see each other as much as we used to, the result of busy lives. It was good to see her!

4. I am thankful for beautiful summer days. I used to be such a winter lover that I hated summer. Crazy, I know.

5. I am thankful for my collection of souvenir coffee mugs from different places.

6. I am thankful for the weekly postcard I receive from my sister.

7. I am thankful for scrap paper because I make a lot of lists.

8. I am thankful for the sound of chirping birds at dawn and dusk. They bring the outdoors inside, which makes me feel connected.

9. I am thankful for the jar of homemade salsa a friend of mine gave me. There’s nothing better than fresh food!

10. I am thankful for the articles my mom always sends me. She is an avid reader, sometimes reading FIVE newspapers a day, or something crazy like that. She is so good at spotting and saving articles I find interesting.

Hope you have a few things to be thankful for this week.

Spring and Then Winter

| terriaw

I was so excited when I found some tulips coming up already!

We’ve had an unusually mild winter this year, with less than half our average snowfall. These tulips came up about a month early, but I’m not complaining. I am ready for gardening season, especially since I wasn’t into it last year with my usual zest.

To my surprise, I was excited to wake up to a winter wonderland scene this morning!

I think about 4-5 inches of snow fell overnight.

It was falling in really huge fluffy snowflakes, coating every single branch and twig, making for great practice with my new camera.

What I really want to be able to do with my fancy camera is to take closeups of interesting things I find in our gardens and on the trails.

Until our flowers come back to life, I am practicing on other things throughout our yard, such as these conifer branches.

Such a beautiful scene looking out the windows today.

I will definitely be going back outside to play some more.

A Bluebird

| terriaw

Did anyone happen to see Vicki’s post featuring a bluebird in her backyard?  She’s a really great bird-watcher, so I love looking out her back door via her blog. I fell in love with that photo so much I asked her if I could purchase a copy to have framed and hang on our wall. Being the nice person that she is, she said no, she wouldn’t take any money for it. She said I should just do it.

Look at how beautiful it looks, matted and framed!


Almost all the artwork in our house is nature photography, purchased at an art fair or photos taken by me or people I know. I am proud to say this new addition to our art collection was taken by my friend Vicki!