Postcrossing Blog

Simone (or Hexentrio) is a 42 years old mother from Germany. Postcrossing has collaborated with her in the past with the organization of the LupusCrossing – Butterflies are crossing the World event. Read more to know more about her.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

My best friend told me about this lovely idea to send and receive postcards from all over the world. She got hooked herself by a German friend living in Long Beach, CA.

It took me some time to sign up, as I regularly forgot the name of the website… Was it *mailcross*, *crosspost* or *cardscross*? Finally, on my birthday she wrote the right name down. Two days later I signed up and here I am *gg*.

I’ve ever been collecting cards from everywhere, but rather spontaneously. Once having discovered Postcrossing, I keep on being amazed day after day… I love the cards I receive, the intimacy on Postcrossing and all these amazing people I’ve met. They all are so caring about making other people happy, often without knowing them in real – Postcrossing is pure affection, family and home.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Besides of being mom of two girls (6 and 9 yrs) who keep me on my toes, I spend most of my spare time for working voluntarily for lupus patients. I was diagnosed with lupus 22 years ago. Since then, I try my best to help other patients here in my region, as board member to the German Lupus Association, patients’ representative to the Lupus Foundation Germany and as advisor to the European umbrella organisation.

Maybe you do remember the great initiative the German Lupus group had with Postcrossing for World Lupus Day 2009? Have a look at this and this links to learn more. This had been a very touching common project – thank you, Paulo and all postcrosses who sent a butterfly card.

I spend the few remaining minutes of my spare time with reading, photography, meeting friends and going to the movies.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

My mailbox:

(Do you see my broom?)

My postcards to send:

Once I scan the postcards I receive, I put them in albums where I can store them easily:

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

I haven’t realised how beautiful, breathtaking and awe-inspiring the world is until I’ve started Postcrossing. I even have overcome my fear of flying (at least almost ;-) ) because I want to see all these amazing places in real.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

Each postcard is precious to me, is a gift – so it’s impossible to decide, but I want to show you two unique cards.

These little peace-keepers touch my heart. Every state leader should have this card on their desk.

The biggest card I’ve ever received: 30 × 21 cm – amazing!

Here is Sibylle from Austria. She has been collecting postcards for a long time, loves to travel and visits her favourite friends in the zoo frequently.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

About 5 years ago I had a surprise pen pal from the USA. Our penfriendship was short-lived, but she sent me the link to Postcrossing, which was, back then, only 1 month old. I got terribly excited, thought about it, got some opinions, then registered and my first 3 cards went to Hawaii, Italy and Germany. And after absolute impatience I received my first card from Germany after a while.

I have been collecting cards and stamps ever since childhood, because my dear granny was an avid traveller and sent us cards from everywhere she went! She usually collected them afterwards, cut the stamps off to add them to our collection, but eventually I didn’t give those cards away anymore, so as to keep them whole and as much as I love stamps, I love cards more and ideally with beautiful stamps on them! I still have those old cards that miss a corner!

I love sending cards to people, trying to make them happy! I make an effort with every card I send, recently almost all have gone out with first-day postmarks as an extra and I agonize over every card I send. However, no matter how much I try sometimes it is really hard to find the right card. Sometimes the sending seems more important to me than the receiving. I like to spread joy.

One of my dreams is to have a written, stamped and postmarked postcard from every country in the world, but I tell myself “dream on”, I am not putting enough effort into that, I am afraid. Still, it is a nice dream.

The fact that I now get mail almost every single day got me hooked. And many cards are really outstandingly beautiful and some are real works of art where everything is perfect: view, stamp, deco, the words, …

Thank you so much to everyone who made me happy and who will do so in future.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love to read and write (but cards are all I write these days), I am what I call an “indoor astronomer”, meaning I do more reading books and magazines and searching the internet about astronomy, than actually going out to look through a telescope (which is a fantastic thing to do though!), I collect elongated coins and I love to travel, like so many postcrossers do.

In comparison to many others I have not been to all that many countries, but maybe I can expand that list in the future, except that I find it hard to find a travel companion. Those dear to me love the British Isles above all other places, which I do too (Scotland is my absolutely favourite country!), but I would love to see other places too, and going to the British Isles always makes me sad as I know I’ll have to leave again!

So far I have been to: Albania; Belgium; the former Czechoslovakia; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Eire; England; France; Germany; Gibraltar; Greece; Guernsey; Herm; Hungary; Italy; Jersey; Liechtenstein; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; Northern Ireland; Portugal (Madeira); San Marino; Sark; Scotland; Slovakia; Slovenia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; Turkey; the USA; the Vatican; the former Yugoslavia and Wales.

The countries I would most love to see are: Chile, Iceland, Andorra; Armenia; Azerbaijan and Georgia as well as Romania. Alderney and the Isle of Man would be super to visit also, I am sure!

My main hobby equally as important to me as Postcrossing is visiting Vienna’s zoo, Schönbrunn, which is the oldest in the world! I have many furry friends there – and I mean FRIENDS. Animals that know me and come up to me, when they see me, like tiger girls Ina and Kyra, tomcat Jerry and Orang utan Sol. I love them dearly.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

That is my postie hiding inside a mailbox from my advances… haha. Seriously, this is outside Wien’s main post office, where I drop off most of my mail for first day postmarks. The mailbox with legs is from a fantastic advertising campaign by Austrian mail, where this mailbox roams Austria.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

My favourite postcards are those my family (mother, father, brother and until she died my granny) have sent me, because they absolutely hate to write so they are real signs of love, catering for my addiction.

Other than that my favourite kind of cards are stunningly beautiful landscapes (named nature only!) and (Russian) orthodox churches as well as tigers, that I love soooo much!

Andy (or Duplevista) is 52 and lives in Southampton in the UK. He is known for being very interested in anything related with buses and is specially keen on squared postcards. Here’s what he has to share with us.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I was a member of various postcard e-groups and a Norwegian guy that I swapped with told me about Postcrossing. After just sending officials for a short while I discovered the forum button – then I was really hooked!

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I am interested in all forms of public transport, especially buses and spend as much of my spare time visiting places and logging the details of the vehicles seen to record on my database. Strange as it may seem, its a great excuse for visiting new places!

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

The part of the front room that I laughingly call my office, where the majority of my postcard stuff is.

As the post office that I use the most is just a small part of a newsagents, I decided to send a picture of one of the delivery vans to be different.

Where most of my cards and envelopes get posted. It is an older box with GR indicating it was new in the reign of King George VI. Unusual in the fact it is built into a freestanding brick structure.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

This was sent to me as a RAS by aj-person from Finland. I have developed a great love of Square shaped postcards.

This was given to me by MissMaple after the Art Unlimited meeting when I raided her doubles box!

Have you met any other members in real life?

I am lucky enough to have met quite a few, the first that I met was lovely ElSol from Russia. Since then I have met those at the London Meeting, and the meeting in Alkmaar at Art Unlimited. I have formed a lasting friendship with MissMaple and Thaddee_Calisson especially, amongst many others.

Yvonne is a 64 y.o. grandmother in the U.S.A. and goes by FloridaGirl in Postcrossing. She has a soft spot for postcards with maps and nature, as you can easily see in her favourites. Here’s what she has to share with us.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I had saw that someone mentioned swapping postcards in another site. I went searching for where a site would be to do that. I found Postcrossing. What got me hooked was not just the official part of Postcrossing but also the Postcrossing forum when I discovered private swaps and saw that there were so many wonderful cards of places I’ve never seen. The people in the forum were so nice and I started to make friends. Also the cards spurred me to research places that were on the cards. I couldn’t just look at a photo and find it interesting, if it wasn’t clear to me what or where it was, I wanted to find out.
I do continue to do the official Postcrossing exchanges.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I love maps, rocks, bookmarks and for years I made quilts but I had to stop quilting. That’s when Postcrossing started. I have maps from many places in the US and some other countries (road maps) and have 5 world Atlases.

I also have a collection of rocks that my parents, other family members or I have found; and, some that I bought, for example, petrified wood from Brasil.

My children have been giving me bookmarks for years, since I read so much. I’ve gotten beautiful bookmarks from other postcrossers.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

That is me at my mailbox in front of my house.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

My favorite of the animals are wild cats. This is a great card for the tenderness shown by the lions and the fact that I received it as a get well card from a postcrosser who I’ve gotten to know.

I’ve come to love the beauty of the Julian Alps in Slovenia. This just one that showns how beautiful they are.

The Japanese have a beautiful way of showing off their cherry trees.

This one shows olive trees with wild poppies blooming around them. It is one that I think is especially pretty.

Claudia is a creative Postcrosser from Italy, she even illustrates her own postcards. Read more about her in the following Spotlight interview!

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I discovered Postcrossing reading a newspaper – I immediately thought that it would be a great chance for me to experience the world outside my window in Naples in a brand new way: not just by seeing pictures of new places but also by discovering aspects of people’s lives and cultures through senders’ words. I also loved the idea of establishing random contacts, as this allows the whole Postcrossing adventure to be free from any boundaries of age, color, culture or religion.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I have many hobbies, but I should admit that I am not dedicated to all of them. I am dedicated in playing with my pets, reading books, watching movies and TV series, drawing, sun tanning and eating chocolate [I’m definitely too active in that :)] Then I sometimes love creative activities such as decoupage, scrapbooking, making beaded jewelry, and sewing bags for my niece or Halloween costumes for my pets. I would love to learn more about cooking and baking, especially foreign recipes.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

My youngest cat Pepe hidden in the mailbox, ready to scare the mailman to death :)

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I have received many beautiful postcards and I love them all for different reasons, but I do actually have my top three:

I generally love picturesque street view postcards, as they let me dream about how great it would be to walk those different corners of the earth.

This postcard litterally left me breathless, because when I was 4 or 5 years old my dad built a wooden model of this same ship for me! Now I know it’s the “Endevour”, the vessel in which Captain Cook first sighted New Zeland in 1769.

With this third postcard I want to thank every single postcrosser who accepted my invitation to swap one or more of my favourite postcards with me. It’s amazing to discover that there are people around the world ready to do their utmost to find a postcard you like, just to make you happy.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Receiving a postcard is always a big joy for me, but what I love most is to make my own postcards. Ever since I joined Postcrossing, I created my handmade postcards, because I wanted to share more of myself than just the few lines you can write on a postcard…to give them a “personal touch”. So, inspired by my beloved pets (1 mini-pinscher dog, 4 cats and 4 parrots), sketch by sketch, my handdrawn characters – the “Nextlola’s Zoo” – materialized in front of me… hoping to bring a smile to the receivers’ faces. I was hugely surprised by the extent of appreciation from other postcrossers, and because of the enthusiastic support of some of them (very special to me), I decided to try to turn my hobby into a job by printing my own postcards and selling them on my website.