What classes as a hand made card?

This topic might be helpful for you: Etsy, Zazzle and Print-On-Demand Services

Often, postcrossers distinguish between handmade and professionally printed cards, don’t worry too much about it :wink:

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Of course it’s acceptable! :raised_hands: Your only obligation (as you already know) is to send a postcard–as far as what constitutes a postcard, you should refer to your postal service’s definitions and parameters, not the whims of individual Postcrossers.

You’re in lockdown now–your health and safety outweighs the importance of fulfilling wishlists. If you cannot buy postcards at the moment, don’t. The work you have already put in to finding a beautiful image and seeking a professional printer speaks for itself.

I have used MOO with great satisfaction, and all of my cards have been happily received!

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I think it’s perfectly acceptable to print up your own postcards to send. I can think of two examples that are encouraged in Postcrossing: meetup cards and World Postcard Day. In both these cases, people print up their own cards with their own images. While there may be professionally printed examples of these, most of them are actually made by the senders (or other amateur artists) themselves.

Whenever anyone claims that these are not “real” postcards, I think what they actually mean is that they are extremely discerning postcard collectors who only want to receive a certain type of postcard, i.e. professionally printed ones by actual publishers.

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If you look at my sent wall, all of the “Eitelborn” cards are using my own photos (plus one that is used by permission by another local resident), printed through MOO. I print my own local “tourist” cards through MOO because my town is too small to be of interest to larger publishers. I also sell these cards to raise money for our library. So, if the other Postcrosser in town uses them, they would be considered “store bought.” Even so, I don’t send them to people who say “no self-printed” or “no photos” but ONLY because they are more expensive than commercially available cards. The people who are so restrictive will get some other tourist card that will hopefully please them!

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Thank you all for your help.
The drone owner was super helpful and offered me several images, and I got excited enough about the project to immediately order the smallest quantity from Moo (thanks @colorfulcourtney for the advice on quality on the other thread ).
I’ll see how I feel about the look when they arrive, and make a decision about continuing post pandemic. (please tell me that there will soon be a time when I can visit places and enjoy buying postcards!)

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Moved to the #postcrossing:general-topics section, since this is a Postcrossing-related-questions/discussion post, rather than handmade postcards themselves.

If you want to learn more about handmade cards or to join tags/RR’s for handmade cards, check out the handmade cards/Mail art Directory.

Have fun with your hand made cards :wink:

@Chieusa
Sorry for putting it in the wrong place

I don’t understand why people don’t like hand-made or home-made postcards. Of course I understand when people don’t like a simple thin paper or a hard paper cut out that isn’t nice at all. But really well done home-made cards are wonderful. Every “idiot” can go into a shop and buy a postcard for money. That’s nothing special. But spending your time creating your own postcard with your own fantasy and ideas, that’s so wonderful and unique. I already got a crocheted postcared, a knitted postcard, a sewed postcard, all of them so beautiful, and they were made exclusively for me by the sender. I LOVE home-made cards!!!

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I am one of the “idiots” referred to in the above post who only send store-bought cards. Makes me wonder why I bother to participate in Postcrossing!

Maybe it’s the twelve years I spent living in Germany which immediately translated the following…

…into something along the lines of, “Anyone can buy a card.”

Which is true. Anyone can buy a card. Anyone can make a card. Anyone can write a card. It’s what you put into it that matters. If you love what you send, it will show. :heart:

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I am one of those “idiots” too, high-five! :slight_smile: joking aside, I really like touristy cards bought in stores. To me they are unique because I haven’t been to the location, and they show what I’d see if I visited your town or city. And with COVID-19, those touristy postcards are even more precious, since who knows when I’ll be able to travel again.

It’s really absurd sometimes…
I have designed some postcards that were sold via a webshop with the name of the webshop printed on the back, where people could buy them and use them for postcrossing. A store bought card and everybody is happy.
The webshop stopped and now I print my designs myself via posterxxl, an internet printing service.
No longer store bought…
So the same card, the same design, but a different back.
What makes this card less of a postcard than the webshop one??? :thinking:

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Maybe it’s proof for some people that it has been vetted by a professional and maybe that’s important to them. I’m reminded of the book publishing field where something similar also happens–some people prefer books published by a traditional publishing house compared to self-published books even if the quality may be very similar. They perceive that mark of a traditional publishing house indicates approval by a respected professional–even if it turns out that the cover art is terrible and the editing is lousy.

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That would not classify it as handmade.
I had some own photographs printed as postcards and sent them. Nobody complained about them and some earned hearts. E. g.:



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I’m one of those who doesn’t like selfmade/handmade cards. Mostly because of the low quality most selfmade/handmade postcards have. Don’t get me wrong, there are very artistic people out here who make great postcards but I’d rather not take the risk. Although to me it’s not a big deal if the image you print has a good quality (focus, not blurry etc) and is professionally printed. Especially if it fits the recipients wishes. Some I’ve even liked.
To me there is a difference between handmade and selfmade postcards btw.
Handmade = cards people create with their hands (painting, drawing, glueing things to cardboard)
Selfmade = cards printed with selftaken photographs

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Same for me. When I talk about handmades I mean crafted, unique cards.

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I think, handmade is made using hands, like painted, crafted, collaged etc.

Self made are the printed, copied, and the above.

Handmade is also selfmade (if it’s done by you), but selfmade is not necessarily handmade.

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It’s totally absurd. But I don’t waste any of my time or creativity on people who 1. only want “real” postcards (you get what you get, there are some terrible “real” postcards out there, or 2. only want handmade/selfmade if you’re an artist or a photographer.

I am both but I won’t send my work to those people.

(If you want to say that you appreciate effort/heart/a significance to the person sending for cards you receive, I get that.)

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To clarify, yes, “every idiot” is ment as “anyone”, as we say in Bavarian “jeder Depp”. Anyone can go into a shop and buy a card. But I disagree, not everyone can make a beautiful hand-made card. Not everyone is gifted in arts (drawing, painting) and handicraft (sewing, crocheting and so on). And for me, a beautiful and individual hand-made card is much more precious than a 50 Cent mass production card from a shop.

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I think, one reason might be, that if someone likes the card, and uses their favourites as wishlist for cards they’d like to receive, only one person can send them the card that is printed from your photo, by you, and is not sold anywhere.