HCS: A Stamp and a Story

Photo shows an ATC made by @hollycm6 featuring a used postage stamp cancelled with a hand-carved postmark from the Canton of Dandelion Weald

A stamp and a story: swap description

Send your partner a postcard or envelope which (in addition to the real postage stamps) includes a faux postage/artistamp, cancelled with a faux cancellation mark.

In the 'notes' section of the postcard (or on a separate note inside if you choose an envelope) tell your partner/s the story of your stamp – either why you chose that particular design, or explaining the technique/s you used, or any other background information you can think of.

Swap requirements:

• You will send a stamp and a story to each of your 3 partners.
• Artistamp, faux cancellation mark or both should be hand-carved by you. In other words, you have 3 options: use an artistamp made using a different technique then cancel it with a hand-carved cancellation mark
  OR hand-carve the design for your artistamp but cancel it with a store-bought or otherwise-made cancellation mark
  OR go the whole hog and hand-carve both the artistamp and the cancellation mark.
  The requirement is that one of these elements is made using a stamp hand-carved by you, but you can hand-carve both, if you like.
• Include some notes about the story behind your artistamp.
• Postcards/envelopes may be store-bought or handmade, so long as you can fit the real postage, faux postage, faux cancellation, and stamp story. If you prefer to send as an envelope with the story inside, that is also fine, so long as the artistamp and faux cancellation are still on the outside.
• If you do not hand-carve your artistamp, please use an alternative handmade technique rather than the services offered by professional companies e.g. Zazzle (which can make valid U.S. Postage from your own design) or Smilers from the UK Royal mail.

Some handy resources

• Click here for the Wiki definition of artistamps - essentially an artistamp is a handmade postage stamp, made to resemble the real thing but (obviously) with no commercial value. Artistamps are also known as faux postage, postoids, cinderellas, and probably other things, too!
• You can buy gummed, perforated stamp paper from the Olathe Post
• Aisling d'Art has lots of practical tips for making artistamps - especially helpful if you use PhotoShop.
• I have a faux postage Q & A on my blog for some more DIY options
• Read about the stamps & postage systems invented by other mail artists at the Local Post Collectors Society
• An online 'museum' of artistamps – browse for inspiration
• The Discworld Emporium has a great range of faux first day covers for inspiration, too!

The obvious bit
You already had to have a rating of 4.9+ with no recent no-sends, 1s or 3s to join this group anyway, so the same stands for this swap. But I will still double-check before assigning partners, so if you have what you feel is an unfair comment or rating, just PM me & we can try to work it out. :-)