Pondering about postcards: the 'Pile of Postcards Exchange'

Hi there.

Following on from my post earlier in the week, about misspelling addresses, I thought it was a good time to share the outcome of my participation in the Pile of Postcards Exchange. 

It was the lovely idea of Sian at From High in the Sky to get people writing, by hand, real, papery, postcards sharing a moment from their summer ... then posting them out to 6 others form around the world. And the whole nostalgic activity gave me plenty of food for thought from the very start ...

Where do you find postcards these days?
As I was going to be posting to people from different countries / counties I wanted to send a card that closely represented where I live; so they'd get a true feel for the location.

Now, if you're someone who lives in a little tourist town or big city then you'll probably take for granted postcards with familiar scenes on them but - everyone else - play along with this little experiment ...

If you had to send someone a card depicting where you live ... where would you go to buy one? It's not so easy to answer is it?  The small town where I live isn't a tourist destination and I can't ever recall seeing any postcards of it in the shops I pop into for bread, milk and the Radio Times.

So, next time I was in the city centre I went to the main WHSmith and asked for local postcards ... which they didn't have. So I was directed to the Tourist Information Office [not somewhere you tend to visit when you already know an area is it?!] and there they were.

The cards I sent:
For some reason ... 3 of the designs were freebies, so I took those thankyouverymuch,  and then bought several others featuring arty shots of the Transporter Bridge [a local iconic landmark]:

And then, once I had a set that represented where I live ... I took them away with me and - as is tradition - I wrote and posted the postcards from my holiday!

Ruth, Maria, Serena, Heather, Jen and Jessie - I do hope you all received your bi-location card from me. It's fun to think that a little piece of Teesside made it's way safely through the postal system to cities across Britain as well as all the way to Australia and the USA.

The cards I received:
A big THANK YOU to Karen, Sinead, Cheri, Jane, Jacky, Cate ... and Sian, for these lovelies which dropped through my door this summer:

And then there's this one [at the bottom of this photo] which fits into both the above categories; because ... I both sent it and received it!

 My Dad, who looked after our house while we were away, texted me after finding it on my doormat to tell me I really ought to get out more seeing as how I was resorting to sending myself postcards!

Clearly he was forgetting that I was out ... which is precisely why I needed to send myself a postcard; to document it! ;-)

And here's where I'm storing all mine, in the back of my summertime Junk Journal [more details here].

Further postcard-themed projects:
If, like me, you like the idea of writing postcards to yourself  - to preserve memories - then you might want to hop back to this series of posts last year:

In my '30 Postcards to Myself' project I created, and wrote out, a card for each day of September 2013 ... not that I posted them to myself that time round.

Posting a card to yourself once while away on holiday is fun. Posting one 30 times is ... well, it's close to £19!!

So I just hand delivered them to myself instead ...

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Before I go, I'd like to thank Sian for hosting the 'Pile of Postcards Exchange' and for getting us all to slow down and share a few 'wish you were here' moments with like-minded happy-mail fans from across the globe!

Julie

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p.s: for a whole host of additional postal-themed links visit my Going Postal Pinterest board here.