Postcrossing Blog

The ravioli have been eaten, the stamp-shaped cookies are long gone, and the surfaces of our desks and dining tables are finally visible again, now that all the postcards have been mailed… So it’s time for a little World Postcard Day recap!

As usual, October 1st started somewhere on the other side of the world, while many of us were still very much on September 30th, and then slooooowly rolled across the timezones. The forum topic was such fun to follow throughout the day — lots of postcard piles, messy desks, trips to mailboxes and post offices, meetup photos, special stamps and, naturally, a suspicious amount of food shaped like postage stamps!

People wrote postcards pretty much everywhere. On trains, during lunch breaks, while traveling, at work… and even on top of a mountain! Julia1506 wrote her five cards from Mount Pilatus in Switzerland while watching alpine ibexes outside the window. And there was even a mailbox up there to send them from, whoa!

There were also lots of small stories that made us happy! Postcrosser reiselustig was walking to the mailbox with a pile of postcards when she passed a garbage truck. One of the workers jokingly asked whether all that mail was for him… so, on the way back, she got his address and decided to send him one too. So cool!

The Postcard Lounge was back as well, open for 16 hours so that people all around the world could drop in and write postcards together. It’s strangely comforting to sit quietly with a bunch of strangers on the internet while everybody scribbles away at their own desks!

There were some familiar faces there, some new ones and even a few younger postcard writers, which made us extra happy. And some people took the postcard writing very seriously, like tornadogrrl, who wrote 72 postcards and her pen ran out of ink while she was signing the very last one, about a minute before the Lounge closed. 😱

One thing we were especially happy about this year was seeing so many events outside the usual Postcrossing meetups! Back in August, I asked everyone to poke their local library and suggest celebrating World Postcard Day — and some of you really did it! By September 28th, we already had around 25 library events listed on the World Postcard Day calendar, and a few more appeared after that.

Libraries organized postcard-writing tables, coloring activities and little workshops, and there were also activities in schools, museums and other community spaces. This year’s coloring version of the official postcard turned out to be especially handy for some of these events.

And the celebrations didn’t all happen exactly on October 1st either. At a school in Feuchtwangen, Germany, a class of 12 and 13-year-olds celebrated by drawing each other’s names and writing surprise postcards to their classmates. The idea was simply to make a connection and give someone a little bit of joy, which feels like a beautiful interpretation of this year’s “Paper Bridges” theme.

There was plenty happening on the philatelic side too! Several postal operators prepared special World Postcard Day postmarks, and this year we got something particularly exciting from Serbia: a Postcrossing / World Postcard Day postage stamp! 🎉 Pošta Srbije issued the stamp on October 1st, together with a first-day cover and special cancellation. This is the first World Postcard Day-themed stamp out there, which is wild, when you think the event only started 7 years ago!

Meanwhile, Postcrossing itself was having a rather busy day! This year we lowered the World Postcard Day limit to five addresses per person, which thankfully made things much calmer behind the scenes while still leaving plenty of postcards flying around.

A total of 99,803 postcards were requested on October 1st (in all timezones + UTC), and of course that doesn’t include all the extra postcards people sent to friends, family, penpals, coworkers, neighbors, postal workers… or random garbage collectors. By the way, thank you for being understanding about the new limit. From our side, things went much more smoothly this year, and we hope that meant everyone could spend a little less time fighting with the website and a little more time actually writing postcards. 😊

And last but not least, it’s World Post Day today! October 9th celebrates the anniversary of the founding of the Universal Postal Union in 1874, which is basically the enormous international postal network that makes all these little paper journeys possible in the first place.

This year’s World Post Day theme is “One postal network, infinite possibilities”, which feels rather appropriate after a week spent talking about Paper Bridges. Every postcard we sent on October 1st depends on postal workers, post offices, sorting centers, planes, trains, vans, bikes and mailboxes somewhere along the way.

So today, a big thank you to all the postal workers who keep our postcards moving — and to all of you who gave them so much extra mail to carry last week. 😅❤️ Happy World Post Day!

When you think about it, postcards are a terrible piece of technology. There’s no encryption, and no undo button. No read receipts. They’re fragile and can easily get lost or damaged (a bit of rain and you can’t even read them anymore)! They require you to find stamps and walk or drive to your nearest postbox in order to get them sent. And you don’t know when they’re going to be delivered: anything between 3 days and 3 months is possible!

And yet… somehow, 157 years later, millions of people still think they are just brilliant — us included! 😍 They’re surprising, colorful, thoughtful, carry a heartfelt message and cute stamps, and just make us want to hug the sender for thinking of us. October 1st is World Postcard Day — the day we celebrate this terribly brilliant invention!

By now, World Postcard Day is already underway in a lot of countries around the world. People are meeting up, libraries and museums are joining in, and plenty of postcards are being dropped in postboxes today. Some will travel across town, some across oceans, and some will probably take the scenic route to their destination… 🤪

And there’s a little extra stamp-shaped celebration too: Pošta Srbije is releasing a Postcrossing/World Postcard Day-themed stamp today (yes, it’s a 2-in-1)! It features a classical Serbian mailbox… and in case you were wondering, they really look like a bearded grandpa!

The stamp, FDCs and special commemorative cancellation mark will be available in post offices and their online shop, from today onwards. Hurray! We’re very happy to see one new country enter the “Postcrossing stamp club” — and also to see World Postcard Day featured on a postage stamp!

Wherever you are celebrating, check out if there’s a meetup near you, and perhaps you’ll be part of one of those tables covered in postcards, pens and stamps. And if not, you can always join us in the Postcard Lounge and celebrate there with everyone else. World Postcard Day doesn’t really need to be complicated! Just a postcard, a stamp, a pen, and most importantly, your time and care.

I think that’s why postcards are still so beloved in this day and age of digital “instantaneousness” — because you know the person on the other side was thinking about you, and gave you a bit of their precious time. As Uncle Alex used to say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is”.

And last but not least, we have an extra challenge for you all today: send at least one postcard to someone who isn’t expecting one! Maybe someone you haven’t written to in a long time, or simply someone who would smile at finding your handwriting in their mailbox. It doesn’t need to be clever or beautifully composed — a small surprise is enough. Let us know in the comments who you’ll be writing to.

We hope you spend your day surrounded by happy mail, and indulge in some stamp-shaped deliciousness — like ravioli or stamp cookies! Here’s to slow mail and this wonderfully inefficient little invention! ❤️

Happy World Postcard Day, everyone!

Is everyone ready for the postcardiest day of the year? We hope so, because World Postcard Day is just one week away! 😱

Yes, yes, we know: we already wrote the big World Postcard Day FAQ earlier this month. But talking about limits and slots is one thing… remembering to buy stamps, sign up for meetups and stock the kitchen with delicious stamp-shaped food is another. So, with one week to go, here’s your final World Postcard Day checklist!

Check your postcard stash!
Make sure you have enough postcards ready to go, because World Postcard Day has a sneaky way of making people write “just one more". Any postcard is a WPD card if sent on October 1st, but if you’d like some extra special ones, you can download and print the official postcard from the World Postcard Day website.
Also, make sure your favourite pens are writing smoothly. Now is the time to refill your fancy fountain pen with waterproof ink!

Print the colouring version, if you want to share the fun.
This year’s official postcard also has an outline version, which is perfect for children, schools, libraries, museums… or adults who need a good excuse to take out the colored pencils!

Stock up on stamps.
October 1st is not the day to discover you only have one stamp left… 😅

Save at least one slot on Postcrossing.
If you’d like to receive the World Postcard Day badge, you’ll need to request and send at least one official Postcrossing postcard on October 1st. The badge will appear once that postcard is registered. Remember: this year, you can send up to 5 postcards on October 1st, as long as you have enough available slots (no extra slots are added for the day).

Plan to send some extras outside Postcrossing.
World Postcard Day is bigger than Postcrossing! Send a card to a friend, a family member, a neighbor, a teacher, a librarian, your local fire station, a nursing home, or someone you simply want to thank. Think of other people who might not have received a postcard in a long time, and could probably use a little extra cheer! Now is the time to make sure you have everyone’s address.

Check out the available postmarks.
If you’re in Germany, Portugal, Åland Islands, the UK or the USA, there are special World Postcard Day postmarks you can use on your postcards too! Plus, Serbia Post is launching a Postcrossing-themed stamp on the day… but more on that later.

Check the events page.
There are meetups, library activities, museum events, postcard workshops and other celebrations happening around the world. And if you’re a geocacher, don’t forget: attending a Geocaching event next week will earn you the World Postcard Day souvenir on your Geocaching account! Take a look and see if something is happening near you — or organize a tiny celebration of your own.

Join the Postcard Lounge.
We’ll have the online Postcard Lounge open again, so you can write postcards in quiet, cozy company with other postcrossers around the world. Bring postcards, stamps, a pen, and your beverage of choice.

Prepare the official menu.
As tradition dictates, the official World Postcard Day menu is “things that resemble postage stamps”. We recommend ravioli for the main course (or sandwiches cut into stamp shapes), and stamp-shaped cookies for dessert… but we’re happy to see your gourmet creations!

Remember to take photos of your postcard chaos!
We want to see your writing desks, postcard piles, stamps, mailboxes, meetup tables, library events, colouring activities, stamp-shaped food and general happy mess. Please share them on the forum topic… especially if your table looks like a tiny postal tornado passed through it! 🌪️

And that’s it! Gather your cards, check your stamps, shop for the right foods and get ready to send some paper bridges into the world.

We can’t wait to celebrate World Postcard Day with you on October 1st!

Every now and then, someone shares something on the forum that makes us stop scrolling and say: “Wait… how did you make that?!” This was very much the case when Ksenia (aka Xute) posted her washi tape postcards some years ago!

Washi tape is one of those stationery supplies that many of us happily collect, but then sometimes struggle to actually use beyond borders, corners or little bits of decoration. Ksenia’s idea is a brilliant way to put those rolls to work: instead of drawing with pencils or paints, she uses torn pieces of tape almost like a paint brush, layering colours and textures until they become a picture. Just look at these!

The results are stunning, and Ksenia kindly gave us permission to share her process here. Maybe it will inspire you to try something similar with the tapes you already have at home!

The washi tapes from which the handmade postcards above were made are from the set on the left below — it has twenty Van Gogh-themed narrow washi. I like having sets of Van Gogh tapes like the one on the right too.

But the glue on these washi tapes is not that good: while for wider tapes I either use stick glue or stickers on top for the edges, for narrow ones it just doesn’t work in my regular decoration.

Even though it looks like it’s hard to do, it’s not at all! I just mark very general lines for the picture, and then fill it with colour of washi which fits somewhat, ripping them approximately with fingers. The Van Gogh colours do the rest of the work!

Of course with Van Gogh tapes nicest would be recreation of his own paintings which I did for the ones shown above. For next try I decided to use the motive of Wassily Kandinsky “Winter landscape” painting as a reference. In his early works he was inspired by French impressionists.

Ready to get started?

1 step — 2H pencil outlines, the houses are already covered by thin single colour tape.

2 step — Beginning of filling — I usually do the small areas first.

3 step — Filling the big areas — since Van Gogh colours are more summer-spring the winter scene will need some tinkering.

4 step — the “tails” of washi tapes cut, I used correction fluid for snow roofs and Sakura calligraphic pen of 2.0 mm for trees, windows and shadows.

5 step — Ready! Now time for laminator or a zip bag — I cut the window for the stamp on the backside, so it gets cancelled, but the card itself protected by plastic bag.

Isn’t that wonderful? We love how this technique turns tape into texture and into a beautiful picture too! It’s also a nice reminder that handmade postcards don’t need to be perfect or complicated — sometimes a few simple lines, a handful of colours, and a bit of patience are enough to make something special. Also, Ksenia says that these pictures take quite a bit of tape to make… so they’re great for removing the guilt of buying so many washi tapes! 😂

A big thank you to Ksenia for letting us share her tutorial and photos. And if you give this technique a try, we’d love to see what you make on the washi tape discussions topic! 😍

World Postcard Day is a little less than one month away, so it’s time for the traditional “let’s get ready!” post!

Every year, we get lots of questions about the day, the badge, the postcards, the limits, the events… So this year we tried to put all those questions (and answers) together in one place, so that everyone can be prepared. Please have a look, and if you have other questions that have not been answered, leave them in the comments!

When is World Postcard Day?

World Postcard Day is celebrated every year on October 1st.

This is the anniversary of the first postcard ever sent, and we celebrate it in the best possible way: by sending postcards!

What should I do on that day?

Send postcards! 😍

You can send official Postcrossing postcards through the website, but you can (and should!) also send postcards to other people in your life that could use a smile in their mailbox.

World Postcard Day goes beyond Postcrossing: it’s a day for everyone who enjoys postcards, stamps, mailboxes and handwritten messages.

What happens on Postcrossing?

On October 1st, if you request and send at least one postcard through the Postcrossing website, you’ll receive the World Postcard Day badge on your profile once that postcard is registered.

If you already have the badge from previous years, the number on it will grow by one.

So, for example, if this is your third year participating, your badge will eventually show a 3.

Does the postcard need to be requested on October 1st, or just mailed that day?

For the Postcrossing badge, what matters is that the postcard is requested through Postcrossing on your October 1st.

You can mail that postcard in the next few days, or as soon as possible. The postmark does not need to say “October 1st” for it to count.

What about timezones?

The Postcrossing website shows dates in UTC, which can sometimes make things look a little confusing.

To make sure no one misses out because of timezones, postcards requested on October 1st in your own timezone count. So even if the date shown on the website looks like September 30th or October 2nd because of UTC, don’t worry: if it was October 1st where you are when you requested the address, it counts.

How do I know if my postcard counts?

Eligible postcards will have a little World Postcard Day marker next to their Postcard ID on your Traveling Postcards page.

If it’s there, that postcard counts for the badge once it is registered.

How many postcards can I send through Postcrossing on World Postcard Day?

This year, each member can send up to 5 postcards on October 1st.

There is a limit because World Postcard Day is a very busy day for Postcrossing. Lots of people come to the website at the same time wanting addresses, and the pool of available recipients is not infinite. If too many postcards are requested at once, we risk running out of good matches and the matching system starts having a very stressful day. Paulo also starts having a very stressful day. Please think of Paulo. 😅

Do I get extra slots on October 1st?

No — World Postcard Day does not give anyone extra slots.

The limit is the maximum number of postcards you can send that day, if you have enough available slots.

For example:

• If you have 1 available slot, you can send 1 postcard.
• If you have 3 available slots, you can send 3 postcards.
• If you have 5 or more available slots, you can send up to 5 postcards.

So, if the badge is important to you, it’s a good idea to save at least one empty slot for October 1st, so that you can request a postcard on that day.

Do I need to send all 5 postcards?

No! You only need to send one official Postcrossing postcard on October 1st to receive the badge once it is registered.

Sending more is fun, but not required.

How can I celebrate if I don’t have empty slots to send postcards through Postcrossing?

You can celebrate by sending postcards to friends, family, neighbours, teachers, librarians, local firefighters, nursing homes, schools, someone who helped you recently, or anyone else who deserves one! You can also organize events and bring people together!

What postcard should I use?

Any postcard you like!

We provide an official World Postcard Day design every year, so you can download this year’s postcard and then print it locally or through an online printing service.

But you don’t have to use the official design! Handmade cards, other World Postcard Day designs, postcards from your stash, tourist cards, art cards, funny cards… they all count. Any postcard is a World Postcard Day postcard if you send it on October 1st.

Can I make my own World Postcard Day postcard?

Yes! Many postcrossers make their own World Postcard Day postcards, and we love seeing them.

You don’t need approval from Postcrossing to create your own card, as long as it is clearly your own design and doesn’t pretend to be the official postcard.

Please don’t edit, recolour, remix or distribute altered versions of the official artwork. The official files are shared freely for everyone to use as provided.

If you’d like to use the World Postcard Day logo on your postcard, please respect its license.

Do I have to celebrate alone?

Not at all!

There are lots of meetups and events being organized around the world. You can find them on the World Postcard Day events page.

And if nothing is happening near you, you can organize something small yourself — even meeting one friend for coffee and writing cards together counts as a celebration!

We’ll also have the online Postcard Lounge open again, so you can join other postcrossers around the world while writing your cards from home.

How does the Postcard Lounge work?

The Postcard Lounge is an online space where the community can quietly write postcards together. Everyone joins on a video call but stays muted, providing a shared little window into desks, postcards, pens, stamps, and people writing mail in different corners of the planet.

On October 1st, the lounge will be open again, so you can join others there for some shared postcard writing.

Can World Postcard Day events happen on another date?

October 1st is the official day, and that’s the date that counts for the Postcrossing badge.

But events can happen around that date too, especially if a library, museum, school, postal operator or group that is meeting needs to choose a nearby weekend or another practical day. The goal is to celebrate postcards and help more people discover them.

Are there special postmarks?

Yes! Some postal operators and postcrossers organize special postmarks for World Postcard Day. These vary from country to country, and they get listed on the events page, when we know about them.

If you know of a special postmark, postal event or postcard activity that isn’t listed there yet, please let us know!

Should I write something special on the card?

Anything you want to write is perfect! If you want to, you can use the opportunity to mention that you’re writing the postcard on World Postcard Day, to spread the word about this celebration! 😉

Can I share photos?

Yes, please! We love seeing your postcards, writing tables, meetups, stacks of stamps, library displays, colouring activities and happy mailboxes.

You can share photos on the forum, on social media, or wherever you usually post things. Use the hashtag #WorldPostcardDay so others can find them too.

What should I eat?

The official World Postcard Day menu is “things that look like postage stamps”!

For the main course, we recommend ravioli. For dessert, stamp-shaped cookies. 😋

So… everyone ready for the big day?

Make sure you have postcards, stamps, pens and at least one available slot if you want the badge. Then, on October 1st, request an address, write some postcards, and send a paper bridge into the world.

We can’t wait to celebrate the postcardiest day of the year with you! 😍