Bendy Fabric Postcard - Update: Success!

There's really no reason to send a postcard made of fabric and wire, but why the hell not? You can keep changing the shape of it and keep putting it back to the original rectangular shape. And of course you can mail the thing and your friends have a laugh when it shows up in their mailbox.

Step 1 Inkjet Print onto Canvas

Print out the addresses and a bounding cut line using the inkjet printing on fabric technique.

Comments

[kelle]

way cool, unfortunately we don't have freezer paper here in Europe but luckily I hade a can of repositionable spray glue at hand. That works too when you glue it to cardstock paper.

[HurdyGurdyMan]

I repeated this, I didnt have any wire so I used some solder and used hot glue to put everything together and seal the corners so it looks good and the corners dont fray. Spare copper wire does the trick too.

[Eddbot]

maybe if you used tiny springs instead of wire it would snap back to it's regular shape, but you would have to wrap the springs with some thing so they don't get tangled up

[joejoerowley]

What about EL wire rapped around the armature wire. That would be cool. You slip in a CR2032 to power it up.

[naught101]

cool. I can see a problem if you bend and unbend the wire too much it will get stressed and eventually break. perhaps another cool idea (with a slightly different aim in mind) would be to use spring wire? also, why make it rectangle? you could make it any shape really (although internal corners will leave gaps in the bits you fold over). I reckon a random trapezoid would look pretty cool.

[jleemero]

It's armature wire, it's made to bend a lot without breaking, this is the stuff they use to make armatures for clay figures used in claymation.

[royalestel]

Yeah, it's just aluminum wire. You can also use floral wire just fine for armature wire. The copper is great stuff.

[Bob Moore]

wow luv it - hope to replicate soon - also glad it worked so well

[skirtmuseum]

wow, the post office really will deliver anything. nice.

[jongscx]

you can also use electrical-fence wire. It's cheap and really pliable, unfortunately, it comes in 25ft sections at least.

[zachninme]

Glad to see it made it! What will your next postcard be???

[fungus amungus]

Two more have already been sent and received. Both need more pics before they're ready to be published.

[zachninme]

Awesome! Glad to see it worked!

[zachninme]

I can tell where you picked out the rectangles from to mask the address in PS. Right below the state. The yellowish-shadow gives it away.

[rachel]

There's also stuff called Fray Check which does exactly what you want here, only without getting all stiff. It's available in any fabric store. Maybe your girlfriend will buy some and you can borrow it.

[TheCheese9921]

thats realy kool A+++++

[saites2001]

Finally, a reasonable use for inkjet printing on fabric. Great job, and very cool!

[zachninme]

Agreed! Before this, that seemed so useless, unless you were making a scrabble quilt or something ...

[arez81]

How do you get the postage to stay affixed?? I mean it would fall off eventually. Maybe silcone glue perhaps...

[fungus amungus]

I used some Krazy Glue Craft. I haven't gotten it mailed it back to me yet, so hopefully it's already out of the state by now. Does a package need its postage once it's already off and running? I wonder.

[fungus amungus]

You can mail all sorts of crazy stuff through the post office. And I fully intend to exploit that as much as possible.

[leahculver]

Awesome use of printing on fabric!

[fungus amungus]

Thanks!

[sam]

do you think chicken mesh would work too?

[fungus amungus]

To cover the entire side of it? You can try it, but there would be a lot of ends of wires poking out the side. You could probably use some copper wire as well. That's what I was thinking of using at first for a business card-sized version of this.

[austin]

No, It will just be put with letters. any sorting machine used will not be that sensitive.

[Jack Daniels]

thats just awsome!

[stonehenge360]

aint this gonna clog up the mail sorting machine things at ur local post office??

[Neodudeman]

I like it!! That looks fun to play with on a normal basis.

[stonehenge360]

wow.....