Decorating the back of your →NON-HANDMADE POSTCARDS←

Sometimes I use various rubber-stamps for decorating my cards.
The leaves are carved by myself.

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I absolutely love this thread! :heart_eyes: Thanks @ChristianJ for starting it and to all those who left photos or explained what they do - they are very inspirational!

I am amazed by your drawings, sketches and decorations. I have received some very creative cards like the ones you show. One that I really liked -though I can’t locate it to take a picture and upload it here- was someone that filled the back part of the card with very tine sticky notes and wrote different pieces of information about here country on each one of them.

As for me, there are several things I really appreciate in the cards I receive, and thus I try to pay attention to those when I send cards out:

  • Using several stamps if possible.
  • Adding stickers or washing tape.
  • Writing the name of the recipient in a nice lettering style.
  • Making it “thematic” - for example if the person says he/she likes cats, I try to make it revolve about that theme.

I also agree with some of you, when you add the stamps there is very little space left to write, so when people say they prefer the postcard in an envelope I have the opportunity to write more, to add some mail art or some special token such as the wooden ballerina (see picture).

I am attaching some photographs of what I do below.

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Wow, all your drawings and decorating are amazing!

Sometimes I draw a tiny pic of me and/or my cat, very small because despite I was sure I’m not talkative I often end up with tons of text (I started with 5mm line interval and sometimes shrink it to 3.5mm). For friends with whom I already talk a lot I write less and draw our game characters or something else related to our common interests. Drawing for friends is much easier because I don’t worry too much about lacking skills (I’m still bothering even though the recipients were happy).

Thank you for this discussion! It inspires to draw more often :slight_smile:

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Hello guys! I’m finally back after a few days of absence… The truth is, I’m crazy busy lately, which is why I never have enough time to come here! But then I thought about all the beautiful pictures I was missing, so I decided that I had to organise my time in order to be able to read this thread :laughing:

Thanks for the compliment! I see: you’re another expert in “small letters”. But at least you can write in a normal size if you want to… My postcard-writing sessions, on the other hand, have ruined my normal handwriting, which also became extremely small! Even when I’m writing on lined paper and the lines are all spread out, the height of my letters stays postcard-like!!

It’s so cool to have niche objects in our collection and then draw a recipient who has these things in their wish list. You get a very rewarding feeling of satisfaction! The same works with the front side of postcards as well (although we are shouldn’t really be talking about it here). I have some postcards that have been staying under my bed – yeah, this is where I store them – for years, before I found the perfect recipient!

This is a masterpiece! I hope your postcard was appreciated enough… Although, sometimes, for postcard such as yours, it’s very difficult to make one’s gratitude completely come across – I’ve often received great postcards for which I felt like I didn’t have enough words to express how thankful I was!

That’s beautiful, but also super dangerous – was the card in an envelope? I could imagine all those sticky notes getting torn by or stuck in the sorting machine… But I’m super happy that that artwork safely reached your mailbox.

Same! I always try to use more than one stamp, write the address in a different style and make it revolve around stuff that the recipient likes… Although I’ve never used many stickers in my life – maybe it’s because I prefer to write more, and stickers always take away too much vital space :laughing: But I love receiving them!

By the way, @diana_pastoriza, thanks for attaching all these pictures! You’re very gifted – you should definitely start an Instagram account where you post your mail art… You’ll get famous! I loved looking at all the envelopes you created – they’ll probably look even nicer with a nice postal cancellation on the stamps! (Did the wooden ballerina safely get to its destination? I’m always extremely scared that these things will get “eaten” by the sorting machines!)

Omg!! Please don’t worry about your skills – I literally fell in love with all your drawings! And you are really good at using crayons as well. I love that cute Eevee… I wish I received something like that! Please do draw more: your style is really great, and I wish I were as good as you!

PS: Your handwriting is also so nice to look at… You’re what I call “the perfect Postcrosser” – all your recipient are sooo lucky!!

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Wonderful! Don’t worry about lacking skills :blush:

I especially like the girl with the animal in her arms and the draenei drawing :heart_eyes:

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Thank you for this thread!
It is so inspiring to read the contributions of every single post, and happy to know that there are so many postcrossers who put in maximum effort at the back of their cards!

I for one, rely a lot on a postcrosser’s profile to add that special flair to the back of the postcards. To be honest, correspondences from Singapore aren’t usually in very high demand - we are a very puny nation. I pay attention to the postcrosser’s preferences and I combine two or more elements at the back of the card. Some postcrossers prefer a more general tone to their postcards - and I will just fill it up with just plain text. Not all cards I send out will be filled with sketches/doodles/drawings, only the ones that I reckon will appreciate the fun in receiving such surprises!

I collect older mint stamps, and I will use them for postcrossers who appreciate such stamps. If possible, I will try to use at least 2 or more stamps. Postcrossers who talk about their love for washi tapes will see one or two tapes on their cards! I also design my own rubber stamps, so for the more creative postcrossing profiles… rubber stamps!

I doodle and paint at the back of the card with watercolour/gouaches, sometimes with colour pencils. I really do it for the fun of it because I believe in sending something that I personally love receiving.

I will also throw in an interesting story with the artwork, like a person that loves Paddington will read about his adventures as a marmalade hoarder. I write with a fountain pen, so I play with ink as well haha.

Here are some examples

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Adding to my comment about my self-designed airmail stickers:
I also have 3 self-designed airmail rubber stamps.

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In cleaning up some digital clutter, I found a scan of another drawing I did on the back of a card destined for someone who said he liked crows, I guess.

Also:

I love these!

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First of all, let me say that I’ve found another “perfect postcrosser”! This thread is really a goldmine – after opening it, I found so many like-minded users, which makes me enjoy this whole project a LOT more!

And I guess you’re right to not painstakingly draw on the card every single time… I should also do that to optimise my time and thus increase the likelihood of finding profiles I actually like! But, to be honest, it’s just too difficult for me to send a slightly more “boring” postcard! :laughing: I’m just toooo much into it!

Oh my GOD!!! Your handwriting is so neat! Please tell me how happy your recipient was… I wish I received this postcard… By the way, in my four years of Postcrossing experience, I’ve never come across Sonic the Hedgehog fanboys :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Ok, I wanted to individually reply to all your other pictures as well, but that would make my post a tiny bit too long… So I’ll just quickly go through them in one single paragraph :sweat_smile: From the strawberries I could actually tell that you’re a real artist – I, for example, would make a huge mess. I love all the different shades of red and that tiny white reflection you added… Also, from the pumpkin one, I can also see a super nice Chinese handwriting! Your cards are little works of art in every language!

Wow Harry, these look so professional! I particularly like the “Per Luftschiff” one… I’m kind of sad that I didn’t get to experience the times when these flying giants were roaming the skies. They carried lots of mail as well (cf. “Zeppelin Mail” on Wikipedia), which would then be cancelled with special postmarks!

You’re so good at drawing – it looks printed! Did you make sure to tell your recipient that that’s your own drawing? If not, he might think that it was just there, on the card! (Although, at a closer inspection, since it covers the word “postal”, you can clearly tell that it’s not printed!)

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@ChristianJ Thank you! It didn’t actually occur to me that someone might mistake it for pre-printed. I don’t remember if I said something about it specifically, but probably. (Something scintillating like “I drew you a crow” :rofl: )

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Some postcards I decorated today. Since we’re talking about opening a tag game for cards with decorated back, I thought I would give it a go again. Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done this, and I really enjoyed it. :laughing:

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so colourful, I don’t even like pink - but the whole composition looks so balanced! Exactly right to fish out of the mailbox on grey autumn days!

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Is that stamp about Marbles? Reminds me of childhood :slightly_smiling_face:

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They’re Valentine cards, so it fits. :wink:

Yes, they’re marbles. I’ve been so tempted to order more. :grin:

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Wow! You are all so talented!
I would love to recieve such beautifully decorated cards!

Myself I just put stickers and / or washi tape on the card if there’s space for it.

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I love this topic. I really like to send handmade cards, but I feel like people sign up to postcrossing for ready made ones. This is the perfect solution!

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Hello! I am new here and am about to get my first card out. Some of the images on this post are very intricate. Do people send them inside envelopes so they don’t get damaged or just regular without envelopes so that the card itself can get the postmark stamp? Beautiful work from everyone!

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@GreenAberdeen, I agree, it feels safer, especially when handmade cards aren’t mentioned in profile :slight_smile:

@julian0321, hello and welcome to the forum! :slight_smile:
I follow this advice in the FAQ and send by default without envelope. If the recipient wrote in their profile that they don’t mind envelopes, I send in an envelope. (Twice I dared to send when there was no mention of the envelopes, because it was a wooden card and a few postcards, and they were welcomed).
I take the risk that the card might be damaged on the way or completely lost.
Although I write and draw with waterproof ink and don’t worry that they might smudge.

Offtop:
I dunno about foreign postal rules, but in Russia we get two postal marks: from sending office (cancellation of stamps) and receiving office (date of arrival). My office usually puts only cancellation mark and doesn’t stamp incoming postcards. I think it’s very nice of them :slight_smile: But my friend’s office often put their stamp even on the front side of incoming postcards (the most terrible case is when they stamp people’s faces). Once I even sent her a postcard with additional protection layer with a passive agressive message saying that I love our post but please don’t stamp the front side.

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@julian0321I send them without envelopes. I have done a lot of mail art, and part of the process is whatever happens to it on the trip to wherever it’s going. (But I had no idea that in Russia you got another postmark, that sounds like it could often be frustrating, @yarrow!)

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Thank you for the feedback! I didn’t know about a second postmark. That’s interesting :slight_smile: