Postcrossing - Volume 1

I sometimes wonder if maybe I try and take on too much....I work full time, am pretty much a single mum to three boys (I do have a lovely boyfriend, but he lives an hour away), and already have tons of very time consuming hobbies - papercrafts and textiles, ice hockey, geocaching, making jewellery, following Pearl Jam around like a lost puppy.... etc

But hey – there’s always time to squeeze in one more hobby, right? I can sleep when I retire…

So when I saw a friend on Facebook talking about Postcrossing, I hotfooted it over to the website to find out what it was all about.

In a nutshell, Postcrossing involves sending postcards to (and receiving them from) complete strangers all over the world, just for fun.

I have received 22 cards so far, from 11 different countries:

And I have posted 23
 

It has been absolutely brilliant to come home from work and find these happy and colourful messages on my doormat 2 or 3 times a week.

You can see all of the postcards I’ve received so far here

But these are my favourites to date:

This cool collage style card is called 'Vagabond Pizza' - it came from Katie in Los Angeles. 

This one is also from the US - from Micky (a girl Micky) who lives near Washington DC.

it's a picture of the famous "Fallingwater" house, built by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1936.

This has long been on my list of places-I-want-to-visit-one-day

It's a pity the post office spoilt it a bit with that white sticker on the front :(

And another American favourite - once again featuring pizza! 

This very cool postcard was an original print bought from Etsy seller specimen7 (I might buy some myself). 

You can't see, but it has rounded corners.  I love rounded corners.

This was from Melanie, from Michigan

Here's a card made from an original photo taken by Athena, who lives in San Francisco.  I like this one so much because it looks like a perfect place to hide a geocache :D

And here's a brilliant card I got today - I looooove graffiti!  This one's from Minnesota.

I have just realised that ALL my favourites so far have been from America, how strange.

To balance things up a little - here's my most exotic card, I was very excited to receive post from Uzbekistan!

And here is a really cool one I got this week from the Ukraine:

As well as the brilliant images on the cards, I also love reading what each person writes. Some are short, sweet and to the point - one just said “Happy Postcrossing” and that was it - but most tell me a little bit about the person, and what life is like for them in their corner of the world.

It is a fantastic learning tool for Connor, too, as some of the postcards have prompted really interesting discussions about the country they came from.

Every time I get to 20 or so cards received, I’m going to bind them in a book, the photo at the top of this post is of my first postcard book - number one of hopefully many!

Happy Postcrossing!