pen pals

Yesterday, Joe sent a number of handmade postcards, inviting friends and family to be his pen pals.

He gave careful thought about what to draw for each person, then wrote variations of the invite. There were no complaints from him or encouragement needed, he happily created his postcards. Perhaps it was the shortness of the text, perhaps the hope that someone might write back, or a bit of both?

The postcard, to Phil, is a great example of how children love to design decorative lettering. Here he's inspired by  cobwebs, bones and nautical ropes.

We've used old blank postcards, which can be personalized with drawings. Alternative ideas include: local postcards, photographs, decorated envelopes, the recycled back of printouts, digitised virtual postcards, toilet paper (Ezra Pound used this for the Cantos, when imprisoned) tissue etc and so on, ad infinitum.