Where can I find these postcard mailing forum activities?
Stress is part of life, over stressing is not. We all have expectations for our postcards, after all they’re a reflection of us.
I do my best when choosing a postcard and what to write in it. Once sent, is out of my hands.
You’re not responsible for other’s expectations.
Be kind to yourself. That’s more important.
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You will become a “member” very soon (you will get a notification and a badge for reaching trust level 2) and then you will get access to #games-activities -section. There you can find tags, round robins and other games.
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Hi @Elisama_Omodei, basically I was talking about the https://community.postcrossing.com/c/games-activities/11 section.
I mostly participate in Round Robins - a group of people where everyone sends to everyone else. You usually have 2-4 weeks to send out the cards and with international participants, the cards arrive spread out over some time too - so no avalanche in your mailbox 
Tags are fun too (basically a neverending chain), especially if you want to send a card right away, but you have to keep your own tabs on what to send, who owes you a card, and making sure each has the other’s address.
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I can relate to your post. Being still quite new and very excited about this new hobby I participated in several Round Robins and Tags as well as the official postcrossing all at once. I found out that receiving cards, registwring, answering etc takes time too which I had not factored in. As a consequence I am now more mindful of where I participate. but still life can take an unexpected direction and again things can become stressful. I think it is important to remember at these moments, that writing and sending postcards is our hobby, not a job.
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Thank you for sharing and the courage for sharing your worries!
I agree with the many kind posts before.
Not sure if someone already mentioned this opportunity:
If you do create handmade cards … did you share some in the mailart/handmade topic?
… then you can get direct feedback on some pieces.
With your penpals you could simply ask them what they think to a good time to reply.
Have a good time postcrossing & don’t worry! 
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As others said before, just send your card, no matter how the receiver receives it. Don’t worry too much about it. If you want to decorate the card or make your own postcards, do it! If you don’t feel confident in your skills, maybe start with the Handmade Postcard Tag 
simple - easy - fun.
Very important: Don’t judge a postcrosser by their profile. Some very kind and friendly people hide behind quite rude profiles and vice versa. I guess that most people in the Postcrossing community are not English native speakers and writing is usually more open to miscommunication than speaking person to person. There are also culture clashes. A little bit of allowance goes a long way here. Just because someone comes across as rude doesn’t mean they intend to be rude. ^^
And shit happens. If you accidentally send something that’s too heavy, there is still the option to apologize. I accidentally recently sent something that was half an inch too high! D: Luckily, the receiver didn’t have to pay anything for my mistake and they even said they liked the note by the postal service because it made the card even more special. 
Things like that happen and then we can learn from them. Why worry about a hypothetical event that is unlikely to happen and can be resolved with an apology and eventually a resend if it does happen?
Sometimes, I also feel like I have nothing to write about or I don’t feel like writing, and then I draw something instead. It doesn’t have to be beautiful. Have you seen what people can call art nowadays which sells for millions? I can do that, too, for free! XD
I also had the same experience as apparently very many people in this topic. I overdid it so much, I needed a year long break from Postcrossing. The welcome I received when I came back was very nice though, even if I still had to send and report a few cards.
I participate in forum games much more thoughtfully nowadays and only if I know that it won’t be too much stress.
I don’t join big Round Robin groups anymore, for example. I don’t deal very well with too many cards that I have to send all at once, especially if I do not know when the group will be full.
And I report my cards often only once a week and not immediately when I receive them. 
The other option would be: to immediately say thank you but nothing else. And I like to, well, write a good long thank you message. But I cannot do both. Either an elaborate or a quick short thank you. And the genuine long reply won for me, even if the senders have to wait a few days for that.
I do not have penpals anymore. (Inofficially, I still do but in my mind, they are just normal friends that I like to send mail to. But there is no pressure to reply because I don’t have to and they don’t have to, nobody is disappointed if there is no reply and everybody is happy when they do receive something. 
– and there are also the same people on the forum who I tag and who tag me back and forth and we participate in the same Round Robins – those, I also consider as my friends, but there is no pressure to regularly send anything.)
I barely do official postcrossing still because some of the profiles can be a bit annoying and I am very much in love with the forum where I can choose whom I send what on my own terms.
I even created a Round Robin with small groups where the only rule is that there are no rules. No pressure whatsoever – only a lot of fun in the Goody Two Shoes 
Chaotic Nonsense RR!
You just have to try out what works and what doesn’t for you. 
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About response times with penpals, people who love snail mail usually enjoy the slow pace of it, so there is no obligation to respond immediately. When I send a letter I know it will travel for several days, then they will read it, think about it, and wait for a good time to write back. That’s part of what makes real letters special, the fact that the response is not too rushed 
Most of us really enjoy the part where we’ve sent a letter and can sit back and wait for a reply (hence using snail mail in the 21st century at all) and sometimes a long wait means that by the time a letter does arrive, the recipient is already looking forward to writing one again 
I’ve also found that slower-paced pen friendships tend to last longer. Think of it this way, your penpal might also be stressing out about keeping up, they finally check a letter to you off their “to do” list, then before they know it another letter from you arrives. Oh the pressure! They might even end up feeling guilty that you respond immediately and any delay keeps being on their end. “Sharing the burden” by not rushing a response can take pressure off both of you, and keep the correspondence enjoyable for the long term.
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Thank you! It helped me a lot 
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Oh thank you! I got it! Thank you for your help
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This is such good advice! I always worry about taking too long, but sometimes the wait is part of the charm of hand-written letters!
(Although occasionally my penpal will decide she’s waited long enough and just send a second letter… which inevitably arrives just after I’ve mailed mine )
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Removed due to privacy
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Regarding official postcards, as long as you send them, that’s enough. If you can send them in a time frame that allows it’s arrival within the 60 days threshold, better for you.
As for penpals, they are supposed to become friends in time, you have a regular communication with them and you can tell them when are you busier and when you have more spare time. Most people will understand, for almost everybody has a life.
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Glueing a picture on a cardboard is perfect for https://community.postcrossing.com/t/handmade-postcard-tag-simple-easy-fun/7561
or “fast and easy” -group in the Handmade RR. And it is just a step away from making collages, sticker bombing, washi tape art, stamp art and stamping art. (All but stamping you can do by glueing things on a cardstock 
). There are a lot of possibilities out there!
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And if you use pictures you cut out of advertisement or if you want to recycle an old postcard or somehing else, you can send them in the 
Environmentally Friendly Tag, too. 
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I wouldnt call it stress exactly…but I get a bit anxious when a draw an official and realize I have nothing even close to a wish. I have hundreds of cards on hand, but nothing in anime, fantasy, unicorns, blue cats, fairies etc. I go through my cards over and over again until I just give up and pick a map card or bird or whatever (this actually just happened). I love finding a card thats a good match and challenge myself, but somedays I get frustrated & disappointed. Fortunately I will have just what the next draw is wanting!!! It all evens out.
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I experienced a huge stress in February when I got an emotional and aggressive political personal message from unknown person here. It happened exactly the day I knew my cousin died, so it was a double stress. Before, I used to think this was a safe community to be in, but since then I made a decision to stop postcrossing. As I have a few notebooks travelling, I have to keep an eye on it, but each time I open personal messages on this forum, it’s a stress for me.
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I believe you can flag a post even in personal messages in the forum and let the moderator check it out if you feel that’s inappropriate like bully
Feels bad for what happened to you, I felt like postcrossing is kind of “safe” place in crazy online world but eh… I guess I was too naïve lol
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Short of refusing to register your card, what are they going to do? Send a message along the lines that it was disappointing? I sent what I considered the closest I could manage to someone with several specific requests, getting back a very nice Hurray message.
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So sorry to hear that. Still I hope you stay!
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