The Care Package Project: April

Once upon a time, like in March, Johanna sat down at the kitchen table and proceeded to paint portraits of our family as cats. She is quite the prolific artist, and much of her work actually ends up in recycling (is that bad to admit? There's just so much). Knowing it was only a matter of time before these pictures met a similar fate, but not willing to let them go entirely, I made a collage using the Pic Stitch app on my iPod, then posted the image to Facebook just so the grandmas could see what their favorite artist had been up to:

Figure 1: Eric, Trisha, Abby and Johanna

And the people went nuts. Well, cats DO rule the Internet. But the response made me realize something: This collage would make a really adorable greeting card. And those greeting cards would make a really excellent Care Package Project.

Long story short, David in Composing (newspaper lingo for "that dude who lays the paper out using a myriad of technology") took my image and made my dreams come true. Newspapers are awesome that way. And P.S., you don't have to work at one to have greeting cards made. You could do this, too.

I made sets of five cards and envelopes, wrote little notes including a key to the kitties (because on Facebook, nobody could figure out who was who. Johanna found that hilarious), and sent those packages out into the world.

We sent six in all: To my cousin Mandy because I don't get to see her very often; Ann/John and Debbie/Greg because they get a kick out of Johanna's antics; my grandparents (yes, again) because I could; Dave and Marlene because maybe they need some fun mail; and Maggie because she's awesome and a miracle.

Both my mother and my favorite mother-in-law celebrate birthdays this month, so I made sets of 10 cards for each of them, but that's not so much Care Package Project as it is Happy Birthday to You. I made a few extra sets of five, too, to add to future projects.

Except not next month's. Abby already has plans for that one...