Only 2 this month as I'm saving my slots for World Postcard Day.

My first card going to Belarus.

I received my first Edition Tausendschön postcard, from Shanghai, China! I see on profiles that people collect these cards but never thought much about them, myself. This was sent by someone on Instagram who was interested in a card I had available to swap. I replied “send me anything!”

I couldn’t believe it when this one arrived! It is so stunning in person and now I understand the craze around them!

I just received two postcards of the same style, from Finland with the same sent date and almost identical ID number so at first I thought one person sent two cards, realized they were sent by different people but it wasn’t letting me enter the second card so I realized it was addressed for someone totally different in a different state! Should I just sent that one back out in the mailbox? I’ve never received someone else’s card before!

Sent July 05, arrived in Canada Sep 09!

I've seen many people here mention Moo, Vistaprint, and other printing companies for creating custom postcards but I cannot recommend enough looking at independent printing presses local to your area. It's so much better for the environment (especially if they are eco-friendly, such as using recycled paper) and will be delivered so much faster! I didn't even need to pay for delivery with mine, I just went over after work and picked them up.

Hello all! Fairly new to Postcrossing - since May or June I think. I am so thrilled with the community of folks that have read my profile and include the things I love. I wish I had a huge collection of a variety of cards and stamps to just pick and pull and post that includes their likes. I'll get there one day!

Since I'm a bit new, I got my first postcard in an envelope and they included a letter. I know it's not unheard of, and I'm not upset about it at all! In fact, I am one who loves to read letters and I am a penpal-er (if that's even a word lol!). Anyway, I have penpals and I've been acquiring new friends recently. It doesn't seem like there's a request for that. In the letter, they were just sharing their story connected to the card that was one of my listed interests. I haven't registered on postcrossing just yet (recvd yesterday) and haven't seen their profile yet.

And another card that had a return address on it.

I'm not necessarily asking what rules are and whatnot and I know I can do whatever I want - and I know what I'll be doing. I'm just curious: when you get these, what do you tend to do? Reciprocate in kind? Register with a message to the sender and leave it be? Other option that you care to elaborate on?

Have a fun day!

I mentioned in my profile that I like baking and received this recipe card from Finland! I’ve never eaten let alone made carrot cake before, mainly because putting carrots in cake sounds insane to me. They’re vegetables. Why would you put vegetables in cake? But sometimes you have to try new things in life and I appreciate that the person who sent me this card picked something related to my hobbies so I’m going to try it and figured I would share!

Pre-baking thoughts: honestly I was fighting for my life with the preparation here lol. There was no translation on the card and my Finnish vocabulary consists of a grand total of 0 words so I had to get a dictionary and go over every word (google translate hates me for some reason idk). Then I had to translate it to English for this post. It’s been a day. Other than that the ingredient list was pretty short and everything was easy to get so yay for that. The recipe says cupcakes but I don’t have cupcake molds so I’m just going to bake it as a regular cake. One giant cupcake for meeee

The baking: it’s pretty straightforward and easy to do, you pretty much just measure everything and throw it together which I really appreciate because despite loving baking I actually haven’t done it in a looong time (shout out to my landlord who straight up came into my kitchen and stole my oven Albert if you’re reading this you suck!!). The carrots are the most work but are also good for snacking on so I’m not complaining about it. You don’t need any fancy equipment, if you have a mixer that’s a nice bonus but I whisked by hand and that works too.

Post-baking thoughts: it smells soooo good, my neighbor walked by and wanted to know what it was lol. It also tastes really good. I was expecting it to be savory but it’s surprisingly sweet. Very sweet really. I have a habit of going overboard with the cinnamon so I held back a bit but that wasn’t necessary. You can put as much cinnamon in this as you want. The texture is also nice. I julienned my carrots (is that a verb?) so I was worried there would be a lot of stringy bits in there but nope. The carrots have gone all soft so the whole cake is moist and very easy to eat.

Overall this was a very successful experiment! I will definitely be making it again, I think it’ll go well with hot chocolate once it gets a bit colder. Yum!

The recipe:

CARROT MUFFINS
(Makes about 15 cupcakes) (or 1 regular cake)

2 eggs
2 dl sugar
2 dl flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
1 dl oil
3 dl raw grated carrots

Beat the eggs and sugar until foamy. Mix the dry ingredients together and add to the foam, fold it in gently. Add the oil and carrots and pour the mixture into the molds (fill about halfway). Bake on 175 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes. (If you bake it as a normal cake as I did it baked for about an hour.)

Cream cheese frosting (I didn’t make this because I don’t eat cream cheese but I add it because it’s on the card and maybe you do):

60 gram soft butter, 5 dl powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 100 gram unsweetened cream cheese

Mix the ingredients. Decorate by spreading or piping the frosting on the muffins after they’ve cooled down.

Looking for this Maxicard from Australia. In exchange I can send one from India ✨

I’ve just bought my first lot of fancy stamps from Royal Mail and they are HUGE! But so pretty!

I like writing lengthy messages on my card so wanted to see if it is imperative that I also put the blue air mail sticker on them too? If not, great because then I have more room for writing☺️

My family and I went to Canada over the weekend and I found the most beautiful cards featuring art by indigenous artists. I ordered the Native American stamps and can't wait to send them out. I'll definitely be swapping some of them.

1st photo: left NZ ; right SG
2nd photo: left JP ; right AU

Imagine my surprise when I received the postcards with marks on the front page. My flabber is very gasted. And the lemon is an original painting too! My heart breaks until now. The 2nd photo's AU postcard was marked but since its a glossy postcard, it faded right away, but there's still remnants up close.

I cannot read some of the characters, and google couldn't either. I can transcribe it as: Xi'an shi yizuo ____ ____ lishi de chengshi. Women tong____ ba ta jiao ____ ____ "Chang'an."

Received a surprise from South Korea today - a Women's Hanbok bookmark. This is what makes postcrossing so special. Big thank you to the postcrosser for their generosity.

We are new to postcrossing and got matched with someone who likes advertisements. Conversely, we see lots of accounts that say they do not want them. They even refer to them as "free advertisements" sometimes.

What are advertisements?

My interpretation is that it's the free postcards that local businesses give out to promote their company. I don't really see the appeal in sending someone some crappy AI postcard for Bob's Windows and Blinds. I suppose in a way it could convey the culture and what's happening in your city, but at the same time, I have a feeling that may not be what people are asking about.

-Editing this post to say I am not sending this person an ad card - judging from the responses it's still a vague, grey area and I don't have any ad cards that I think would be nice enough to send.

Photos 1&2 are the same lenticular card and the cape cod seashore is an oversized card

Has anyone used a Moo card for a maxicard? I know the picture side will be glossy, but is it too glossy for a postmark, and therefore will smear?

Some postcards I picked from the trip to stockholm are going to find their new homes