You Can Now Buy My Art!
I am so excited to announce that you can now shop my DMV Valentine’s Day postcards and my imperfect hearts sticker sheet on my etsy page! *air horn noise*
Art Journey
Since my writing internship ended in December, I have turned my attention to making art and I have been having such a good time! Long story short, after a lot of stressing about what my “purpose” is, I realized my dream job has always been to be a creative director of some sort or an artist and have my own studio, so I realized I should be making art. I was in the middle of hand painting a DC-themed cooler as a fun project (although I might try to sell it, more on this later) when I got the idea of making funny little cards relating to the DMV.
I came up with a bunch of different funny DMV related little jokes or sayings that I could turn into postcards, but decided to start small and chose my three favorites that really represent true DC in my mind. When I think of DC, I immediately think of the metro (I really am in love with the DC metro), night monumenting and Tenleytown, the home of my alma mater.
DMV Valentine’s Day Postcards
The night monumenting postcard is objectively my favorite. The actual painting itself was inspired by a recent night monumenting excursion and it really warms my heart to see my memory as a tangible object that other people can have. I intentionally made the people in my painting genderless so that anyone could picture themselves in the painting.
As I said before, I am in love with the metro. At one point I would argue that it was my second home. As much as I love it, it does have a tendency to catch on fire a lot, as I’m sure anyone who lives in DC can tell you.
And last but not least, my Tenleytown Trash postcard! If you’re not familiar with American University culture, you might not understand this one. Basically, the Tenleytown neighborhood trash is called “Tenleytown trash” obviously, and AU students unofficially adopt this as a nickname for themselves.
This postcard is a little homage to that nickname and depicts a little trash gremlin, presumably an AU student, peeking out of a Tenleytown trash bin.
Because these are intended to be for Valentine’s Day (although, you can really send them to a friend/loved one year round), I wanted my postcards to emulate the same playful vibe as the little store-bought Valentine’s cards you would pass around to your classmates in elementary school. I created the back of the postcards to channel that fun youthful energy.
Order your postcards ASAP so you can send them in time for Valentine’s Day!!! Or I guess you could just hand deliver them to your friends if you live nearby :) Maybe give one to your neighbor!
These imperfect hearts are a play on the sweetheart Valentine’s candies with the “sweet” messages on them, but these have more realistic messages that I feel like are very relatable for the gen z/millennial audience.
The ‘spread love’ heart on the sticker sheet carries more significance to me than the rest of them though. One of my best friend’s mother’s gifted me a necklace that says “spread love” on it my junior year of high school after my dad died. She said this saying reminded her of me and picked it out because of that, and since then I have kind of adopted it as my own little motto and mantra, to remind myself to always spread love and make others feel loved. I think that’s probably the most important thing you can do in this life.
Materials and Packaging
The front of the postcards are printed on glossy photo paper for best image quality and the backs are printed on white cardstock paper for best printing quality but also for the easiest write-ability. The two different sheets are glued together with rubber cement.
I really wanted to use completely eco-friendly/sustainable packaging to ship my art, and I’ve done a lot of research on packaging, but I felt a little too overwhelmed to do this right away. The material that I wanted to use is only sold online and by the time I was thinking about packaging, I was worried it wouldn't arrive on time. I also didn’t know how much to order and it was just very overwhelming. So eventually, my packaging will be as sustainable as can be, but right now it’s not. Although, I have been saving all of the boxes from holiday packages to use for packaging to prevent damage to my postcards during shipping. So at least one part of my packaging will be eco-friendly! Please make sure to recycle this cardboard when your order arrives :))
I really hope you like these products as much as I enjoyed making them!! The postcards will be up on my etsy for at least the entirety of February, but like I said before- buy them asap if you want to be able to send them out for Valentine’s Day. There is a limited quantity of the sticker sheets, so don’t wait to buy those if you want them! I really enjoyed making stickers though, so don’t worry, there will be more designs! I already am working on more art for March (which is women’s history month!!) and I am IN LOVE with the stuff I have made so far! Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me and to any of you who buy my art. Please know that it means a lot to me and makes me so happy :))