Postcards Are Finding Their Way Back Into the Story.

Sometimes an idea doesn’t really leave. It wanders around for a while and eventually finds its way back.

Postcards were part of the Scatter Joyfulness story almost from the beginning.

Back in February 2024, I was still discovering and learning what in the world I was doing with all these images that I suddenly couldn’t stop creating. My husband had started showing some of his wife-made creations on his phone to coworkers. With enthusiasm, I might add. It’s good to know you’re loved.

One of the gals on his team saw an image of Bunners flying a jet and asked if she could have a printed copy.

Bunny, aka Bunners, is our most loving, adorable, furry, fluffy long-haired dachshund. She’s been part of this where-is-this-going journey since day one and eventually became my CCO, Chief Cuddle Officer.

Why a jet? My husband works in aerospace, so naturally Bunners apparently needed aviation credentials too.

And apparently aviation has followed me around for a while. I actually soloed in a Cessna 150 when I was 15. I loved aviation. Flying alone? Terrifying. Flight school math? Even more terrifying. And at 15, being surrounded mostly by boys wasn’t exactly helping either. I never flew as a pilot again, and apparently I never completely left aviation behind.

Ahaaaaa.

A postcard.

Wouldn’t that be fun?

There was only one problem. I had absolutely no idea how to make one.

I’m not a graphic designer, and technology has never been something I’ve naturally embraced. I’ve often said it’s like feeding another pet. I barely use social media and rarely post on my own Facebook or Instagram. At the time, I was only beginning to understand what I could do with AI-generated images.

AI? What’s that?

Seriously, I was learning as I went. Turning one of those images into something correctly sized, properly printed, and even remotely postcard-ish was an entirely different adventure.

The one place I did have some familiarity was photography, so off I went to my local camera shop. Surely they had postcard photo paper.

They did.

Great.

Now what?

Fun side note: this all felt strangely familiar. I’d been an early adopter of digital photography years before, back when that came with plenty of What’s that? Digital what? too.

And here we are.

Once I have a person in mind, curiosity tends to take over. People are important, and contributing to someone feeling seen is just plain fun. I seldom meet a stranger. Smiles are some of the very best gifts back, especially when you can see that little twinkle in someone’s eyes too.

So I bought the 4 × 6 paper and started experimenting.

The image didn’t fit quite right. The balance was off. The scaling, a word I didn’t even know or use at the time, wasn’t particularly pretty. The paper, apparently also called “stock,” yet another new word for me, didn’t feel like the right thickness. I tried this and that and a few things that made absolutely no sense in retrospect.

It was quite a mess, and I spent hours simply, or not so simply, trying things out.

Eventually I managed to make something that looked more like a printed photo than a proper postcard, but it existed.

And she was thrilled.

She framed it.

Go figure.

Looking back, that little imperfect postcard-not-really-a-postcard was one of those early clues I couldn’t possibly have recognized at the time.

An image that had lived on a phone could become something tangible. Someone could hold it. Someone could decide it deserved a spot in their home.

That stayed with me.

The journey eventually wandered somewhere I hadn’t expected. Those early card experiments grew into the 5 × 7 micro-art greetings I create today, and somehow they became something much more unusual than anything I could have imagined back then.

There’s a much bigger story between that first Bunners-flying-jets experiment and the micro-art cards I create today. I’ll save that one for another day. It’s a really cool story.

I call that season my BETA season. :-)

Still, postcards never completely disappeared from the story.

Maybe they were simply waiting in the wings for their own flight time.

Yes, that was an aerospace pun.

And yes, postcards really do take flight as they make their way from one mailbox to another, especially when they’re traveling by air mail. So I’m keeping the pun going.

Now postcards are finally finding their place at Scatter Joyfulness as their own wonderfully simple lane, made for writing on, mailing, and reminding another lovely person that they came to mind.

I’ve always loved that part of real mail. Don’t you?

Someone thinks of you when you aren’t standing in front of them. They choose something with specifically you in mind, write something because they want you to know they were thinking about you, and then one day, there it is in your mailbox.

It takes time to choose something for another person. It takes time to sit down and write. It takes time to actually send it.

That matters.

And the timing of this newest Scatter Joyfulness turn makes me SO HAPPY.

This is the bestest hobby, jobby, gift, mission, whatever-it-is-that-this-has-become, that I could have ever imagined. Making up words is fun for me, obviously. Actually, I just like words. My husband and friends will concur. I talk a lot and am pretty enthusiastic.

No, actually, a lot enthusiastic.

I have to say that I feel very blessed to be here and sharing this journey with you, whoever and wherever you are.

October 1 is World Postcard Day, an annual celebration of postcards and the connections they carry from one person to another.

Paper bridges.

Isn’t that cool?

I don’t know where Scatter Joyfulness postcards will travel yet. I’m only beginning this chapter, and there’s still plenty for me to learn.

That’s one of my favorite parts.

There’s something delightfully simple about a postcard. Someone comes to mind, a small piece of art gets chosen for them, a few handwritten words are added, and suddenly that little piece of paper is on its way somewhere.

Need a few words to get started? Read What to Write on a Postcard.

Maybe across town. Maybe across the country. Maybe someday much farther than that.

And off it goes.

So my question to you is...

Where will you scatter joyfulness today?