One of my current stress-busters is creating cards from postage stamps. I’ve written about the fun of sending and receiving postcards worldwide via the Postcrossing project. I joined in 2016, and in those eight years, I’ve sent and received over 300 postcards. I have stamps from 41 countries.

What is Postcrossing?

• The goal of this project is to allow anyone to send and receive postcards from all over the world!
• The idea is simple: for each postcard you send, you will receive one back from a random postcrosser from somewhere in the world.

Over the years, I’ve thought about alternate ways to use my beautiful stash. With few exceptions, postage stamps are works of art.

A few weeks ago, I took the plunge and removed the postage from my Postcrossing cards by soaking them in warm water. I watched my dad do the same in his basement den in the early sixties. I’m amazed that those memories are so vivid.

It took a few days to complete, and not all stamps were salvageable due to the newer adhesive; however, I ended up with over 600 postage stamps. What a haul!

Sorting is relaxing, too. I initially sorted by color and theme, depending on the volume. There were more blue stamps than any other color, with orange and purple being the most scarce. I had a handful of cartoon stamps, four or five cat stamps, and many flowers.

Once I started making cards, I ended up with stamps everywhere: stuck to my sweater, on the floor, under the cat, and so on. I ended each crafting session by gathering my stash back together for the next time.

It’s interesting that creative pull once you’ve come up with an idea. I looked forward to those hours of crafting time.

Here is a sneak peek of a few of the cards I made.

I’ll share more tomorrow.