Postcards from Toys

Some of my son’s toys he’s had since birth, some are more recent acquisitions, and a handful are from my own and my husband’s childhood. The toys play a lot of roles in his life. They are comfort objects. They are protectors from monsters that may come at night. They are action figures. They are companions in various adventures. They are friends. Each toy has its own personality. A couple have even traveled across the globe.

This week, I decided it was time to take more of them across the globe.

But since I cannot afford to travel around the world with these toys, I am turning to the kindness of strangers who license their photographs under Creative Commons. Then, with the power of Photoshop, I will transport the toys to different places. They will write postcards to my son telling him a little about the countries they visited.

I started with the two postcards above. I used a photo of Iceland by Giuseppe Milo, licensed CC by 2.0, and one of Colombia by Pedro Szekely, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. A koala named Squeaky and a frog named Froggy got to travel to these beautiful locations.

For a more authentic feel, I added stamps from these countries on the postcards.

My son received his first postcard today. After the initial surprise and confusion, he quickly got in the game. He knows I made the card. He saw me taking photos of his toys, putting them in different poses, and dressing them up (having a newborn helped with the outfits). He knew I was up to something (as usual), but he had no idea what.

There is something exciting about getting a physical, personal letter in the mail. It’s likely my son’s generation will have very little experience receiving these on a regular basis. And even if the postcards are not really from his beloved toys, he knows they are from someone who cares even more.