Storage and organizing

Since I started postcrossing, but mainly penpalling I had a problem how to store my letters and postcards. It was really nice in the beginning, I had max. 5 cards from postcrossing and a few letters so I was keeping them in a square box with my envelopes and stamps and some stickers.

But now, as I started to learn more and to have more penpals, my letters incresed. I still only have 10 postcards, which is not much at all, but the letters were killing me :P

So I surfed the web for a long time and I found boxes, albums etc, but the ones I liked (especially the albums) were really expensive. 

I gave up the idea to store my letters in a box because I received many sizes of letters and I realised that it wont look nice when I have small and big letters in a box (plus I would have to have a really big box). So for now I decided to put each letter in a foil and put it in a binder. The same I did with the postcards.

At this moment these are my two binders, the red one is for letters and the white one is for postcards (only for postcrossing and private postcards swap).

The red binder is getting full already (is not the really big type) so I am already thinking of buying a new one (a wider one). 

My letters are sorted after the country they are from and each penpal has a foil (maybe more in the future if the papers wont fit in only one). The countries are written on a cardboard which is long enough to hold all the foils under that country (like a small pocket).

I am taking everything out from an envelope and unfold it and put it nicely in each foil. I also don't throw away the envelope, because I really like the stamps (thinking of making a collection :P ) plus some are handmade or have their own personal touch added to them.

The letters I receive I store them in a box together with my writing pencils and stickers and envelopes (I don't have lots of things) and when I reply to it it goes in the binder.

When it comes to postcards I mainly do the same thing. I divided my binder by countries.

 I use a white A4 (you can use any colour) and on each sheet of paper I add 2 postcards.

The method I used is really simple and cheap. You just take your postcard, put it on a paper and you draw it's contour. After that you make 3 lines on each corner. With a paper cutter you cut the margins and then the 3 lines from each corner. You remove the middle piece and then you take your card and place the edges between the first and the second line of each corner. It should look like in the pictures under:

Front

Back

I chose this type or storing because you can see the front and the back too, plus you can show it to anybody without them being directly handled, so they will stay intact for a long time. And another advantage is that you can store any type and size or postcard.

I confess is a little time taking and if you already have a big collection and it can be really annoying to do this for each card. I know that there are special plastic pockets, but the ones I found here are about 50 euro cents each and with 10 euros I buy 500 A4 Pages, 100 sheets and a binder :) (way more cheaper).