Greetings From….

My letter writing has been a bit lackluster, I am even finding hard to keep up with this blog. However, recently I've restarted swapping postcards rather than write letter. This is something I have not done since Japan where I even have a dedicated IG account I @rgswap which I have starting using again.

When I was in Japan I used to swap Gotochi postcards which were Japanese prefectural postcards sold via the JPost. Gotochi postcard are only available its own prefecture in post office branches. Now I'm back home the only postcards I can swap are the Greetings From series from Postal Love.This has been quite fun to start and in many ways better that Gotochi as it’s international so there's quite a few countries to collect so far got about 20.

Each postcard has information and country such as population, famous people, favourite pastimes and also includes how many Postcrossers the country has. Fortunately I've got a nice collection of washi tape and stickers with a UK theme to go with my Greetings From United Kingdom postcards. It’s fun and nice just to make them extra bit special and it's not always reciprocated that's that's not the point. I enjoy doing it I just hope I can rise to the challenge to find other countries to try and swaps with.

I’m finding a lot of countries/people but I am finding myself getting quite into trying to find people willing to swap for non GF or that have UK already! You can see postcards I have sent and received on my IG accounts. I have considered asking people to write in the native languages to match the postcard so I can try and translate them, not sure yet.

If I were giving tips to anyone thinking about collecting them I would say don't just look at the hashtags (#gfpostcard #gfswap etc.) look at the pictures that person is tagged in to see what they're sending and receiving also check the comments on pictures.

Happy swapping!

Stamps

I've been writing letters and postcards for a long time, in Japan it was really easy and fun to find nice stamps. You could find a whole variety of stamps and change it up and make the correct values. Since returning to the UK it's been a lot harder. The Royal Mail release new stamps a lot less frequently compared to JP post. Recently I have made greater efforts to improve this by buying stamps on eBay.

The eBey buying was thanks to @weepingwillow84 it was her suggestion. I've been buying mint presentations packs. They are slightly more expensive but a lot more interesting. It makes me a real difference to my mail rather than the normal Queens head. But I must admit that some of the stamps that have been released by Royal Mail this year have been rather nice. There has been Star Wars, Animail, the Queens 90th and Beatrix potter as well as the Shakespeare quotes but the eBay stamps are a good addition.

Annoyingly the new stamps tend to come in the same denomination first class, or higher values but sometimes £1.05 which are good for international postcards. The presentation pack prices are a bit random ranging form anything from 5p to 39p but it's fun to try and make up the right value. It also makes mail look far more interesting and adds to your mail art.

I am also currently taking part in my first chain card and have started my own Olympic themed one. Though I find them long and tedious the end result is worth it for the postcard full of stamps. A chain card is just as it sounds everyone sends a post card adding their own stamps and sending it to the next person in the chain until you receive your original postcard back with stamps from everyone that took part. Chain cards are another good reason to start buying old used stamps.

I have to admit that I have become slightly addicted and have a bit pf a surplus at the moment. But they will get used and do make a difference to my mail.