How to make: Twelve Postcards

Where do you want to go this year? January’s project guides you through the process of how to make twelve postcards – one for each month of 2023. Plan your dream destinations and create images to represent them, in collage, crayon, calligraphy or cut outs!

You’ll need:

• Twelve postcard-size and postcard-weight cards
• Ink pen
• An envelope to hold all the cards
• Magazines/maps/coloured paper/ephemera
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Old postage stamps (optional)
• Paper or sketchbook for notes

Step by step:

Start by making a list of the places you’d like to visit. States of mind, city breaks, parts of the body, friends, libraries, recipes… Maybe pick a theme, or duck and dive in different directions.

Have a little think about how to describe each place. Try out ideas.

Here’s my list, with thoughts about images alongside:

January – planning/editing – pencils lined up

February – Booklover’s Edinburgh – letterpress letters

March – MapLove – the number three cut out of a map

April – Iona Driftwood Binding Retreat – pebbles or shells

May – sun holiday – an orange

June – island time – boat

July – Shetland Text and Texture – Fair Isle pattern

August – Iona Driftwood Binding Retreat – water

September – Booklover’s Bath – copperplate calligraphy

October – Personal Geographies Venice – canal map

November – Paris Love Letters – envelope

December – holiday cheer – star

On one side of each card, illustrate each destination. Take the pressure off January by starting in March perhaps.

Steadily work through all twelve.

If you like, recreate a conventional postcard layout on the reverse side, with lines for the address, space for a message and room for the stamp.

When your set of twelve postcards is complete, put them in the envelope to keep them safe.

Don’t forget to label the front, and add a sender’s address on the back. And a stamp too?

Please tag @paperhazell and/or @thetravellingbookbinder if you post pictures to the socials.

Refer back to the postcards regularly, or save them for twelve months.

Wishing you a year of discovery, compassion and colour, with plenty of gluing and sticking.