Putting a stamp on it

So far I've spoken about my love for photography and shared a couple of poems but have yet to go into more detail about my passion for postcards. I've always been someone who likes having real post, not just everyday letters and bills but correspondence. When I went to university my Grandma used to write to me several times a week and I used to send her and other members of my family postcards from the seaside. When my now husband and I first got together in 2007 we spent our first three months together apart, as frustrating as it was at the time I enjoyed sending him cards and letters with beautiful stamps on nearly everyday of the week and he has a box of lovely letters to show for it. We moved into our first flat in the summer of 2008 and although I did and still do, leave little notes and things for him to find when I'm not here, I missed sending him post. Of course I still sent cards to my family but I missed picking out things I know he would appreciate. I was designing some postcards to send home on Moo and I came across a piece about Postcrossing and with a tag line “send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person in the world!”. I carried on reading and knew immediately it was something I had to have a go at. I signed up in September 2008 and requested five addresses, five being the maximum at first, and went about picking cards to send to these five strangers that I now had a connection with. My first card was registered in Germany after a short three day journey and then the wait began for my first card. Just over a week later and my first cards arrived, I had three! My first one was from Norway and the second and third from the Netherlands. Below is my first card, NO-14234.

Looking back, I was hooked from there. I sent more official cards over the weeks and then ventured into the world of private swaps and trades. Four years later I've got boxes and albums full of cards from all over the world, I've seen places and read the words of people I would have never otherwise and I'm really glad to be a part of the project. Work commitments have slowed me down over the last year and I have thought about calling it a day at times but then I receive a card or a story that makes me want to continue for the curiosity of what might still be to come. I love the sense of anticipation in the morning waiting for the post to see what treasures come through the letterbox. I've made a few lovely friends though this project, one of them is Anu from Finland who lives in the West Midlands, in the same city where my husband is from and we've met up a few times. I did a private swap with a girl called Szilvi from Budapest back in 2009 and I'm happy to say we've been corresponding ever since, some of the cards I've received from Szilvi are my favourite ones and I'm planning on writing a longer post to show some cards from her at a later date. I have a few themes I like to collect, my favourite being Black and White cards and those by the publisher Nouvelles Images as well as Hello Kitty cards. I thought I'd share just a very very small selection of my favourite cards I've received either through official Postcrossing or through swaps and trades. 

 

  

Have a go, send a few cards and I promise you will find it very hard to stop.