Postcrossing Blog

Minna (aka minnasusanne) lives in the Finnish countryside. She loves stones, the Rasmus, and Stephen King's books! Here is what she had to say to our interview questions:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I heard about Postcrossing for the first time when I picked up our mail in the end of year 2006. There were great cards from different countries around the world, sent to my oldest daughter who had joined Postcrossing. In a few weeks I joined too! First I liked the idea of getting cards from foreign countries, then the opportunity to improve my language skills. But the best thing I think are the wonderful friends I soon found here.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

This is our mailbox, done by me and my husband. Finnish postal service delivers mail to 1 km from your home if you live in the countryside like we do. So our mailbox is in middle of the forest along our road to home. It is pretty obvious that I like stones!

Sometimes, I use the postcards I receive to decorate parts of my home:

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I like to read and listen to music but I must confess that I’m a serious card addict. I don’t spend much time with anything else. This means that postcards have evolved from a hobby to a profession for me this autumn. Last two years I have been interested in taking photographs and after plenty of dreaming and planning I decided to publish some photos as postcards. That’s how my small-scale postcard web shop Minor Postcards was born.

Lately I enjoy planning different cards with my daughter and searching good motifs from other photographers works – I know I’m a beginner and can’t take photos of the Northern lights or polar bears, for example.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

It is impossible to pick just one card. Here are some special cards:

A Sandman postcard and John Bauer's illustration because I like dreamlike drawings and the idea to have a matching stamp to a card is great. (But I don’t like the “Postmonster” which damages cards and hope to get my cards in envelopes so stamps don’t actually matter to me).

The paper doll Robin Hood cat card and Sheepworld card because I like “cut out do it yourself” cards.

The Rasmus is my favorite band and you can’t buy cards about them. This Touchnote card was an official RU-1122544 and I appreciate it very much, because the sender really made an effort.

I also love black & white cards and stones and got these from friends. The broken stone heart was my avatar for a while.

And the Help! card is there because I like funny ideas and would love to have that key in my laptop!!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I like the most about picking the right card for the receiver. I look at their wishlist and try to find something which might be something they would like. It is nice to read Hoorays afterwards and hear how well I managed.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

This is not actually an answer to this question… but it was a fine surprise to receive the first page from my favorite author Stephen King's book Carrie as an official BR-153331. It arrived a long way from Brazil and got here in good shape, despite the long journey.

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes, my daughter was the first! I have been to some meetings in Finland and met Finnish members there. I don’t usually go to big meet-ups, I prefer small meetings. I have met some foreign members too, two of them visited my home, and I have visited one Swiss member. And once I made a surprise visit to a German member for her birthday when I was in Germany for other reason. It was soooo fun!! I can say that with some members I don’t only share postcards, I share my life and we really are friends. And that’s amazing!

This week’s spotlight interview comes from marja2006, from Finland! She and her daughter are avid postcrossers, and even her son contributes to the collection! Here is what she had to say:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I saw a short story about Postcrossing in the newspaper – I googled to find the link to the pages. This happened in 2006. I have always loved to receive postcards. When travelling was not so easy, people used to send much more cards – now when people travel a lot, there are not so many who would send a postcard from their holiday – even if you asked them to! For a lazy traveller this is also a great way to see the world – you can see places you would probably never visit, and a postcard can show you the familiar places in a way you would never see them if you were there yourself as the weather and the lights vary a lot.

It took about a year before I had enough of courage to go to the forum and join the tags and Round Robins, but then I was hooked with tags and swaps…

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I don’t have too much time for hobbies, but taking photos is one of them. I used to play piano when I was young, just for own fun. My daughter takes me to concerts every now and then (or is it the other way around?) – and tries to keep me up with what’s popular.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

My mail comes to postbox, which is in the postoffice next to the railway station. In this picture the postoffice is in the left, with the orange and blue colours of the Finnish Post.

Here’s a closer look at the postoffice from outside, with new postboxes for priority mail (the blue boxes) and economy mail (the orange boxes):

I also take my cards mostly to the ladies in my postoffice for cancellation. Here’s a picture of one of the lovely ladies at my postoffice taking care of my mail:

and here’s how it looks inside my postoffice:

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

There are so many postcards which are special and there are so many new lovely cards coming every week, but here are some of them:

This card I received from my forum friend mlysao from Tahiti – she had it made as a maxicard for me with the special cancellation of the solar eclipse – it really warms my heart to think it arrived from the other side of the world as a RAS:

Another RAS card which made me very happy, a card from Shanghai meet-up in 2008, sent by Linying and signed among others by Paulo and Ana, the founders of Postcrossing:

And I am not wondering at all that Paulo and Ana ended up in Slovenia when I look at this beautiful postcard, one of my all time favourites, which I received in my biggest swap ever:

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

Card from Greenland with ID GL-8 was a nice surprise at the time there were not many active users and also cards from Uruguay, UY-32 and UY-45 were nice surprises – neither of them was sent by a local user! Both of them came from a user with Finnish background! :D And I felt really lucky when I received a card from Tuvalu – TV-222 – which was sent to celebrate the Earth Day.

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

Only my own daughter – she had a long break with it, but now as Finland was approaching the id FI-1000000, I got her writing some cards, too, as we read a comment of my postcrossing friend’s daughter of teamwork in Facebook.

I am also very happy of the fact that my younger son sends postcards when going on holidays – not only to me but others as well! And he also buys cards for my collection!

Kati (also known has Kilona) is in Postcrossing for 4 years now. She lives in Helsinki (Finland), a perfect place for someone who loves to participate in Postcrossing meetings like her. Here’s what she has to share with us today.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I met several other Finnish Postcrossers, in an EuroBillTracker meeting and I think it was Pooca who talked me into trying it. First I had to get a mailing address in Phuket Thailand where I was working as a Scuba-diving instructor and then the rest is history :).

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

I Scuba-dive and I do Iyengar yoga, but I’m also dive instructor and taking part of Iyengar teacher training, so my most interesting hobbies are both passion and profession.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

I adore the Havis Amanda postbox. It’s a special cancellation box, so the postcards always get the beautiful cancellation, which sadly doesn’t happen as regularly in normal postboxes.

I also got a picture of my mailman, when he was rushing to fill my letter box with beautiful postcards all around the world.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I love all underwater postcards and I would love to show you my first ever received diving card.

What are you passionate about?

I absolutely love Postcrossing meetings and I’m lucky in living in Helsinki, where we have several of them yearly. Postcrossing is a wonderful way to meet new and exiting people and when you also can meet them in person, it makes a whole new aspect to the postcard exchanges.

Have you met any other members in real life?

I have met many other Postcrossers here in Helsinki and around Finland in different meetings and in Australia. Soon I’m going to attend an International Postcrossing meeting in Köln which I’m waiting especially to meet my long time Postcrossing pal 9teen87. The fun isn’t ending there I’m also attending the notorious Bielefeld meeting to meet many many exciting Postcrossers.

Our prolific Finnish users have just reached the remarkable milestone of 1 million sent postcards, making Finland the first country to reach into postcards IDs with 7 digits! Hoorray!

Well done, Finnish Postcrossers! :)

Update! The postcard FI-1000000 was already registered! It was sent by MsMoney to ClubPenguin-Nicholas in the U.K.!

Marita had been exchanging postcards for years before joining Postcrossing. She lives in Turku, Finland where she spreads postcard joy among the many mailboxes in the city.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I think my story is a rather common one. I saw an article about some Internet-based hobbies in a magazine years ago and as I have been exchanging postcards with my friends abroad for many years, I decided to take a closer look at the site. The rest is history. The fact that I can surprise someone on the other side of the world just by sending a card is awesome. And of course this is a perfect way to see the beauty of the world.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Besides postcards I have also been collecting stamps for several years. One of my dearest hobbies has been pen palling, which has been a way to get to know the world. I also love learning languages and recently I have become very fond of cross stitching. Oh, and I am a huge sports, and especially ice hockey fan, so I enjoy going to games or watching sports on TV.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Here you can see the front of the main post office in Turku although I usually spread my cards among mailboxes around town while I am on the move.. :)

My postcard collection has grown to such extent that I have cards in many albums and boxes around my flat.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I can not really name any favorite received cards as I have tons of them. And, on the other hand, all cards, especially official cards, are special to me in different ways. But here are couple of which have something extra in them.

This one came from a pen friend of mine whom I knew before joining Postcrossing. You can just imagine what a lovely surprise to receive on official card from her.

This one is an official card from a Postcrosser whom I have gotten to know from the Postcrossing forum. As I know many languages, she had asked her international co-workers to write a sentence in their own language on the card.