Grandma's Postcards

This plain oak tray has been asking for a makeover for sometime, but I hadn’t decided on how to redo it.  I was searching around on The Graphics Fairy, looking for an image to transfer on to it to speak to me.  That’s when I saw her vintage post card images and my idea was formed.

 

My  husband and I started a postcard collection on our honeymoon.  Everywhere we travel, we purchase a postcard for ourselves.  We don’t mail it, but when we get home we write the highlights of the trip and place it into our collection.  Someday I hope to have these cards displayed in a unique way, but for now with three young kids, they sit in a bucket where they are safe out of reach. 

So I decided to create a faux postcard collection on the tray, safe from the kids spills. 

First I gave a facelift to tray itself.  I wanted it to have an aged plank like feel.  I added brown stripes using craft paint.  Then I added some Vaseline on those lines, so next layer of paint would easily distress right off.

I added a pale sage green over the whole tray then distressed with a sanding sponge to reveal the brown paint and light wood underneath. I didn't spend lots of time on the tray middle, knowing that would pretty much all be covered up.

Once I was sure all the Vaseline was off the piece, I stained the whole tray with 2 coats of dark antique walnut stain. 

Time to create my vintage postcard collection.  I decided I wanted it to be from locations that had family meaning and look like it was cards sent to our relatives.  I used a few images of postcard fronts from the towns where our parents, grandparents and ourselves grew up.  I also did one from where we met, and the cottage area I spent much time in as a child. 

I then downloaded the Graphic Fairy’s blank postcard images.  Here and Here.  I modified these images in Photoshop Elements to personalize them with names and addresses of our grandparents and great grandparents.   I ended up using  Signerica Fat and Everett Steele's Hand as fonts from fonts101.com.  They were the closest I could find to match the scripts on the Graphic Fairy’s images.

I printed all these images and layered them onto the tray and decoupaged them down to look like a postcard collection thrown on the tray.

I added a few coats of poly on top for protection.  Instant family heritage “postcard collection”.  

 

Anyone else have a postcard collection?  How do you display them?  I would love to hear about it or leave me a link!

shared on:  Graphics Fairy
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