I just joined last week and sent out my five cards on Day 1. It’s been a little over a week and I find myself refreshing the homepage constantly waiting for the first one to be registered! I’m aware this probably isn’t healthy (lol) so I’ve been trying to keep busy while I wait!
So far, I’ve:
Gone through my existing stash of received postcards (from friends, family) and done some destashing/discarding.
Ordered postcard sleeve pages so I have a place to start organizing my collection.
Done a few rounds of tag on the forum
Picked up a few penpals on the forum
What do you all like to do to deal with the wait while your postcards are traveling?
Another thing you can do that may be quicker is to do tags and Round Robins with people in Canada and/or the US. You can go to the Forum’s section on Language and Geographical Communities / North America and there will be some listed there. Because the distances and jurisdictions are so much smaller, you will get responses within a few days or a week within Canada, maybe a week and a half to two weeks from the US.
That’s very true! I’ve been doing some Canada-centric swaps on Reddit’s postcard subreddit but I’m going to check out the tags and RRs. I’ve never done an RR before!
Welcome to Postcrossing.
I was in the same boat a year ago. Organize. Twiddle thumbs. Wait.
Then, a Postcrosser recommended I check out the Forum. Good suggestion!
I have thorough enjoyed such fora as Many Themes, Write Back my Postcard, various lotteries, NA exchanges such as NA traveling envelopes, Monthly Round Robin/Canadian Edition, All About Women and so much more!
Have a look! I am certain you’ll find something of interest while you wait for official cards. Which will be a while …
Have fun … !
I’m a newbie too, I joined less than 2 months ago. So far, I have done all the things you’ve said (especially the tags!), I even participated in a mini round robin and I promise they’re not as complicated as they look
I also backread the forum extensively, went postcard hunting around the city and went to the philatelic office at the post. Oh, and I watched quite a few videos of other postcrossers showing off their cards on YouTube.
But mostly, I’m learning patience: I enjoy receiving new cards, but I also like to take my time to prepare a card to send to someone else
Besides the newbies lottery you can join, I enjoy the EVERYTHING ELSE section. I like a section where you take a picture of your sky, or outside your window… they are amazing.
You can also go to a section - don’t know how to get there without clicking around-where people brag about their postcards.
firstly, welcome to postcrossing! i hope you’ll enjoy it. secondly, it will probably work better if you keep refreshing your email
i’ve been doing postcrossing for quite a while so i can request an address anytime (i only send out a few a week though so that is probably why).
but i don’t always feel like writing a card so sometimes i just take out all my stuff and decorate some cards. so i have a few ‘themed’ cards like cat cards with cat washi and stickers or something all disney.
i also check out webshops for new things. i try not to buy too much but i’m curious about new things. and like someone else already mentioned, at the beginning i went through the whole forum. it’s very interesting to see how everyone else keeps their postcards or what stamps they use. tags are fun as well.
you’ll find your way. after a while it’s more sending and less waiting. have fun!
I also came to suggest checking out the many Round Robins here. I’ve done swaps on other sites (reddit, instagram, etc.) but I find that the ones here have a much greater sense of community. Also, I’ve now done multiple swaps with several of the same people across different RR ‘groups’, and it’s kind of become a low-obligation-penpal situation when we get matched again.
As others have pointed out, there is so much more to Postcrossing, the Official side. The Forum is great. Since you are in Canada, you might be interested in this Traveling Envelope. It is primarily Unwritten Postcards, but I have added so many interesting cards to my collections.
This may be either too intense or boring, but it’s one of the things I do to manage the time between “Hurray!” emails:
I list the countries (or in the case of US, cities) my cards are traveling to
One column has the number of days the card has traveled (I usually put this to the left of the name)
I check each of the profiles “received” section to see how long it took the last few cards from the US to arrive (I usually list the last four)
For example:
For a card traveling to Germany, I might see 10, 21, 12, 15 days
For a card traveling to China, I might see 51, 49, 57, 102 days
I then write these numbers in columns to the right of the country name, updating every few days. Gives me something to do while waiting, and helps me see a rough average of travel time from the US, and how some countries just take longer.
I am new and impatient too! I’ve browsed loads of favourites and jumped from profile to profile to see if there are any general ‘favourites’. Then I bought some postcards online to try and have a good selection in my stash. I went to a few local shops for local ‘scenery’ postcards. I bought some special stamps and I entered a few lotteries.
I have learned so much from other people’s favourites -etagami, vapour wave, blow balls (all new to me)- I find myself googling and going down wikipedia holes reading about new things!
Yeah I have a few boxes I ordered for my Reddit swaps, so I’ve got the space genre covered lol. I have a handful of other assorted ones. Might swing by the dollar store to pick up some Vancouver/BC ones. I ordered some hand drawn Canada postcards too off Etsy!
Maybe make some handmade postcards? That can be a fun project for an afternoon and that way you’ll have more options for people who say they like handmade cards on their profile
And also… browse for some cool washi tape! I love washi tape
I made my firSt handmade (well sticker and washi) cards for tag and it was so fun. I’m obsessed with washi. I just got a bunch of official Sailor Moon washi from Japan lol.
