From Muffins to Postcards: How a Tomato Became My Next Design Project

The other day I left muffins on my neighbor’s porch. You know, just doing my part to keep the neighborhood slightly carb-dependent. When she returned my plate, she surprised me with three tomatoes from her garden. Honestly, it was like the world’s cutest barter system: “I give you muffins, you give me salad toppings.”She texted to say the plate was waiting on my bench, but what I discovered wasn’t just produce—it was inspiration.

When I saw the tomatoes, my brain immediately went, this is it! Earlier that day, I had been experimenting with fruit-themed cards, but apples felt too “Back-to-School Night,” and the clementines in my fridge looked like they’d just been through war. So yeah, the tomatoes had great timing.

I photographed one, brought it into Photoshop, and started manipulating the style and color. From there, I pulled it into Illustrator, refined it, and laid it out as a postcard. Boom: something grown in my neighbor’s backyard was suddenly digitized, stylized, and physically produced into stationery.

That cycle—taking a real object, running it through a creative process, and spitting it out as something new—never stops amazing me. It feels like alchemy. Except instead of turning lead into gold, I’m turning produce into paper goods. Slightly less profitable, but still fun.

And postcards have always fascinated me. They’re everyday objects but also artifacts—like tiny billboards of nostalgia. I’ve collected them for years, partly for the designs, partly because they prove people used to have attention spans long enough to handwrite messages. Designing postcards feels like adding my own chapter to that tradition. And now, thanks to Cindy’s tomatoes, my neighbor’s garden is basically in the stationery business.

So, it all started with muffins, a returned plate, and a casual produce drop-off. And now I have a new design I can hold in my hand—rooted in community, translated through creativity, and finished as a vintage-inspired postcard. Honestly? Not a bad trade for some muffins.