Hawaii Gallery
8 Nov 2011
Eric and I spent our honeymoon on the gorgeous island of Kauai. Even though my poor husband broke his ankle on the way there, he was a total trooper, and we had a wonderful time. I am definitely planning to write about it sometime soon (and our wedding too!), but for now I will showcase one of my favorite souvenirs! I *love* postcards, and no matter where I go, I always have my eye out for good ones. I think this may be due in part to having visited a lot of museums in my youthful days: I didn’t have a good enough camera to take pictures, and I couldn’t afford much of anything in the gift shops. Except the postcards, the glorious glorious postcards! I have them stashed all over the house: in books, on the fridge, lining the walls. They are little tangible slices of memory, and I never tire of that.
Hawaii was no exception to this rule: everywhere we went, I saw these gorgeous reproductions of vintage postcards. I found two pretty packs full of them at the airport just before our flight home–sweet serendipity!
I have been wanting to put them up on the walls since we moved here, so I assembled a nice pile of unfinished wood frames that cost roughly a dollar each, and I set about painting them. (As a side note, kudos to Ikea for naming their frame “Ram,” which is close to the Russian word for frame and thus makes me smile).
I laid them out on a section of the newspaper that I had no real need for (sorry, sports!), and got to work. I wanted to arrange about ten of these frames, and I decided to paint three of them silver, three black, three brown, and one cream, which would be the centerpiece.
A few of these guys needed two coats of paint (the cream especially), but mostly it was a quick job.
Rather hilariously, the brown I came up with was really almost indistinguishable from the black. I could have put a lighter coat on it, but I decided in the end that perhaps I was subconsciously channeling Hawaiian Koa wood, so I went with it.
Once the frames were finished drying, I started pairing the postcards with the frame colors. I laid all of them out on a white posterboard and rearranged them several times until I was happy with the overall look. And then I hung them right up! A quick and easy project that makes our hallway more colorful, and more suffused with happy sunny memories.

Nov 08, 2011 @ 08:25:39
What a lovely collection! My parents like to go antiquing, but I always felt bummed out about going with them because I couldn’t afford to buy anything cool–that is, until I started hunting for vintage postcards! They are so colorful and affordable. I have a wonderful collection of vintage postcards from Washington, D.C., that portray my favorite buildings and monuments, which I put together in a collage frame from Target. I’ve also been known to put them up in my locker at school, and in cubicles where I’ve worked. They brighten up everything!
Nov 08, 2011 @ 17:02:09
Oh, thank you! I am happy to hear about your collection too! I think it’s really awesome to find ones that have messages written on them too! So cool! They brighten everything up indeed:)
Nov 08, 2011 @ 12:34:03
Now, you know you just want to frame the sports page. Just admit it 🙂
Nov 08, 2011 @ 17:03:24
Ha! Yes!
Nov 08, 2011 @ 14:43:49
Great postcards, and your frames are such a good idea!!! As we say in Russia “есть идея – есть икея”, or the other way around!
Nov 08, 2011 @ 17:04:34
Точно! I have been to Ikea so many times…both here and in Russia!
Nov 08, 2011 @ 19:33:47
I love the postcard with the Pan Am clipper. Just stand there, close your eyes and you’ll be in Lihue.
Nov 08, 2011 @ 22:30:26
Indeed! That’s why I wanted to have them out where I could see them! I hope we can go back before too long!
Easy DIY Picture Frame Embellishment | Krug the Thinker
May 30, 2012 @ 05:18:17
[…] on our honeymoon. I love them so much that I bought a bunch of cheap frames, painted them, and put up a whole wall of old school Hawaii charm. A few months ago, when we were in Culver City with my little brother, I […]