Thinking of You - Puzzle Photo Postcards

During the holidays this year, I’ve realized how tough it is to be away from family and friends. Currently, I’m living thousands of miles away from many people I love and this year is the first that I won’t be home for Christmas with them.

Even though I’m far away, I still want them to know I’m thinking about them. This got me thinking about a great project to share with all of you that I did in college when my friend Chrissy studied abroad in Scotland for a semester.

This is a wonderful, creative way to share some love across the miles (and oceans) if you are separated from anyone. Heck, it’s a pretty fun idea even if you live down the street from the person.

“Thinking of You” Puzzle Photo Postcards

Send your friend or family member a secret message, spelled out only when they’ve received all the postcards you’ve sent.

Supplies:

1)   Friend who is of some distance away from you

2)  3 additional friends who are somewhat flexible and have some time on their hands

3)  A camera (preferably digital)

4)  A way to print photographs

5)  4x6” cut piece of white cardstock (enough for every letter of your message)

6)  White glue or your preferred method of durable adhesive

7)  Appropriate amount of postage

Directions:

1)   You will be forming letters out your and your friends’ bodies to form the entire alphabet (now you see why I said flexible!). We used three people to make letters. You’ll also need an additional person to stand from a high elevation (like a 2^nd story of a building) to take photos of each letter as you form them.

2)  Carefully pose as each letter of the alphabet, making sure you have all 26. If you are daring, make a few punctuation marks. We made an exclamation mark and quotations. This process is extremely fun, btw.

3)  Choose what message you would like to send via postcards – we did, “We love you Chrissy!” Therefore, we had to print three 4x6” photos of the “O”, one of the “W,” etc. so we had enough to spell the message. You can print via your preferred method- we used Target.

4)  Using glue, attach each photo to a 4x6” piece of white cardstock.

5)  Draw a line on the white cardstock to indicate the space for your postcard message vis-à-vis the address you are sending it to/area for postage.

6)  Divide up the postcards between your group of friends or fill them all out yourself. Some of us wrote funny song lyrics, etc. – anything to let your recipient know you are thinking of them.

7)  Stagger when you mail out your postcards and make sure through the post office that you are using the right amount of postage. You may want to send your recipient one postcard first that explains you are sending a secret message and how many postcards to expect!

You can find a whole post on other DIY Photo Gifts here.

By the way, I'm entering this post in Today's Creative Blog Give-away...