Let's have a Postcard Challenge!

I have been pondering hosting a postcard swap through my blog for a while. I host one at MQResources and thought I might do another through the blog. The problem is that I can barely meet my own deadlines for the MQResources swap. But I think I have figured out a way to have a postcard challenge that will be easy to participate in and all I have to do is provide prizes!

Here's how it's going to work. On the first of every month I will post a theme. You will have two opportunities to enter.

1. You can post a comment and describe how you would interpret the theme if you were doing a postcard.
2. For a second entry you can make the postcard and post it somewhere on the web (your blog, Flickr, Webshots...) and add a link to the challenge post.

You can do both and you can enter with multiple designs. On the first day of the next month I will draw a winner and announce the next theme. So you have a whole month to make your entry (or entries). The prize will be a little kit to include either a piece of my hand dyed fabric, or a sunprint or a metallic painted fabric. I will attempt to match the prize to the winner and the type of materials or colors that the winner uses. It will be a surprise!

What do you think? Are you game? It's the first of the month so let's get started!

The theme for October is:

"If I woke tomorrow with absolutely no obligations I would _______________"

Ponder and post in the comments a description of how you would interpret and execute this theme in a postcard. Make a postcard and post it on your blog (or other web site) and add a link here. All entries must be posted either in the comments or the link box on this post.

Have fun!

Comments

[Karen Langseth]

Am I understanding this....we just have to make the one postcard and not a bunch to mail???? This might be doable for me.

Karen

[Mary]

I'm reading this and thinking I already make a postcard or two every month for our family exchange and I could certainly do this ... and then I read the theme and thought couldn't she have come up with something easy like FALL?

You'll laugh at this but I saw a bike in those iron on crystals at Joann's today but can't remember if it's one that I picked up or not. It just so happens I was thinking this week that I need to get out on the bike before it gets too cold. So my card will have something to do with fall and my bike.

[sue b]

hmmm well let's see, I just got a shipment of Golden's Digital Ground stuff so I guess if I didn't have anything else I had to do today then I would spend it experimenting with that. So my postcard will have something to do with the results of my experimenting with digital ground :)

[kayp]

"if i woke tomorrow with absolutely no obligations i would"

GO BACK TO BED.

my postcard would have to do with sleep. coveted sleep. dreamless sleep. rich and luscious sleep.

i'd make my postcard a pillowcase (3D even) with my head laying on it.

[Jeanne McBrayer]

I would head to the mountains! Well, it is DH that has the obligation to go to work, or we would probably be up there all the time. I like this postcard challenge of making ONE and getting to keep it!

[Kay]

I'd probably walk around the house aimlessly, trying to decide what to do! Too much choice is not always a good thing... Could this be a postcard image? hmmm

[Becky in VA]

Very interesting. I will have to ponder about this for awhile. ;-)

But most likely, I'm up for the challenge.

I can't IMAGINE having no obligations!!

[Amy]

I think all I have to do is answer, right?
TRAVEL - without a hesitation, even with all of the crap that you have to go through at the airports, etc.

[Liz]

hmmm....if I woke up tomorrow with no obligations, I would be be on a sunny beach, getting ready for a relaxing sail....

[Jackie]

Thanks for the clarification! I think if I had absolutely no obligations. I would most likely spend the day finishing up some of my own quilts. And also read some books that I have been longing to read. I think that I would love to make a postcard too. But that will have to wait until I return from market. Just curious, have you done a tutorial on post cards??

[Mags]

This is a great idea Vicky.
If I had absolutely no obligations I would probably carry on doing just what I do now, which is playing with my computer, fabrics and materials creating a bit of this and a bit of that all day long.

[Becky in VA]

"If I woke tomorrow with absolutely no obligations I would..."

Spend the entire day/week in my sewing room - starting a new project!

I have an idea of how to depict this on a postcard and will try to get it made before the end of the month!

This is a really great challenge. I've been thinking about it all day. At this stage of my life I don't have too many obligations :-)

[Jackie]

So okay, here I am back with my description. The postcard would definitely be paper pieced with spikes. I would certainly use a combo of batiks and hand dyed fabrics. They would be bright colors with a dark background. I would finish it off with some hot fix crystals for a little sparkle.

[Becca]

OMG Kay and I were seperated at birth. My first thought

GO BACK TO BED!!!

Rotflol

[paula.thequilter]

I, too, would go back to bed. This comment would be different if I had more sleep this week. Easy peasy to do a postcard on this: I'd grab my Micon Pigma pen and just draw it on. *smile*

[Barb]

The closer I get to retirement, the higher my pile of "to be read" books gets. I've had a full time job, now, for over 30 years, and the thing I'm looking forward to the most is having "enough" time to read all I want. I made a postcard (picture on my blog) showing just that. (Now I just have to get my son through college and I'm done.)

[Marta]

"Si mañana me desperté con absolutamente ninguna Obligación _______________" me pondría a Hacer Lo que mas me gusta coser.
En la tarjeta me encantaría Representar la primavera en mi Neuquén.
Grises para el asfalto, verdes y flores en piedras aplicadas Mostrando la explosión de colores, el reverdecer de los inmensos arboles ... y el Sofoco de estos dias con mucho viento, fuertes vientos. Es rara la primavera aquí. No se si mis tiempos me permitirán mostrarla antes del 31. De todas formas, me encantó contar la tarjeta que me gustaria realizar.

[Allison S.]

If I woke up with no obligations I would shop for fabric! I live a distance from the city & have small children so I rarely get to just enjoy a fabric store all by myself. My postcard would be a horse running, made of up snippets of hundreds of fabrics. Why? Because I imagine that such a day would feel like a horse running unbridled and free after being penned up for days. (I have a horse. It brings me so much joy when I turn him out and watch him run.) Of course, I'm hoping that a blank check goes along with this "day of no obligation".

[SewLindaAnn]

If I woke tomorrow with absolutely no obligations, I would...
dress in my fave sweatpants, a pair of my husband's high to the knee warm socks and a softly worn t-shirt. A bandana tied around my head, I would saunter down and make a flavored pot of coffee and sit out in my backyard on the swing with a tray on the table with coffee, condiments and pop tarts. I would watch the birds for hours and then go try to make an art quilt with my visions. I would use needlefelting to make a colorful background indicating trees and leaves. I would stitch the birds in a abstract manner on the feeders and picket fence.

[annie]

if tomorrow i had no obligatios, i would:
go for a lovely long walk along the beach which is right outside my house but i hardly ever get to go onto. i would listen to the waves and gaze out to sea.
my postcard would be rich blues and greys and depict the waves, maybe it wud even have my pink wellies on it too :)

[Ellen Lai]

If I woke tomorrow with absolutely no obligations I would take a walk and picnic at the Botanic Gardens for some inspirations to design some flowers, leaves and trees to tat. Collect some withered samples too to make some prints for the postcard, it will be in green wax for leaves and more colours for the flowers.

[colleen formerly of South Africa]

If I woke tomorrow with no obligations.... I would travel to a place I want to visit...so my post card.... would be a sky scape, with a plane, and probably a stamped postal mark.... and a pieced postage stamp/or flag from the country I would love to go and visit... South Africa. I would try to do it in weathered colors.... or slightly distressed colors to give it the travel feel too.

[Jeanne Turner McBrayer]

I just posted a link to my blog and my mountain postcards. Two are new and three remind me of the mountains. That's what I like to do, go to the mountains. I used various techniques to represent either fall leaves or the mountain hillsides. A needle-felted leaf, hand-painted and discharged fabric, fused applique, and more!