Earlier this summer, I participated in a postcard swap, hosted by the lovely Andrea of Hula Seventy. The theory was simple: dozens of us e-mailed Andrea our snail mail addresses, Andrea divided us into groups of about 12 or so, and sent us each a list of people with their contact information. Then, on or about June 21st, we mailed handmade postcards to everyone on our list. The theme of the swap was 'summer,' and I can't describe how wonderful it was pulling a personal little summery message from amidst the junk mail each day that week, some from far away places like Montreal and The Hague. I kept every one of the cards I received, compiling them in the 'inspiration board' I hung over my desk in my home office, shown above.

Yesterday, I told you that I accepted a job, one which officially begins at the end of summer. I'm pretty excited about it, and the feeling is not unlike what it used to feel like toward the beginning of a new school year: full of hope and potential. I am, however, somewhat nervous, and it dawned on me that what I probably needed was a new dose of inspiration.

So I dropped a line to Andrea and received her blessing to steal her idea: are you guys up for participating in our own little postcard swap? It provides a bit more instant gratification that the Kind Journal Project*, and the best part is that you get to keep the results, rather than passing them along, and create your own inspiration board.

If you think this is a good idea, let me know in the comments; better still, if you think you'd want to participate, shoot me an e-mail with the subject line 'postcard swap' and your snail mail in the body, to chookooloonksATgmailDOTcom. You don't have to be an artist to participate -- handwritten cards are fine -- and you can use any form of art: photography, sketching, fabric, whatever. It just needs to be handmade. And I was thinking that the theme of the swap could be 'beginnings.'

So, what do you think? Again, let me know in the comments, or e-mail me. I'll leave the opportunity to sign up to participate open until, say, the 10th of this month. Hopefully we'll get a fair number of participants!

Update: Emails are already coming in! I just wanted to add: the question of anonymity has come up. If you'd like to use a pseudonym, that's totally cool, just let me know. The address needs to be real, though, otherwise, how will you get all the beautiful art that's about to be created?

Thanks so much for your enthusiasm. I think this could be great.

Yet another update: Emails are flooding in for the postcard swap, and I hope they continue to do so. If you'd like to join in, but have some sort of reservation (e.g., 'I'm not artistic enough,' 'I don't have a blog, so perhaps I shouldn't,' 'English is not my first language,'), then can I just say, you are artistic enough, everyone is; it doesn't matter whether you have a blog or not; and finally, if English isn't your first language, then use your first language -- trust me, those of use receiving your card will love it all the more. Making a slight amendment, I'll keep accepting participants for a week, or until my post goes up on Thursday, August 9th. So, join up, and tell your friends!

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Incidentally, the Kind Journal Project lives on -- I'm not sure where the journal is now, but I keep visiting the Kind Journal Flickr pool in the hope of seeing new entries. You guys do beautiful work -- keep it up!