I love to travel – and I love to collect postcards from the places I go. They’re small, low-cost and lovely .. perfect to be able to collect some from each destination. However, most of my postcards live in a photo album and for this week’s upcycling hack challenge, I thought it would be fun to come up with some interesting and unique ways to upcycle and display postcards. And you only need one item for all of them: an embroidery hoop! Well … and your postcards, too, of course.
Use the screw to loosen the outer band of a 12 inch wide embroidery hoop, and stand your postcards in the space between the bands. Once you have your postcards lined up in a pleasing way, tighten the outer screw to hold the postcards in place.
Pretty spiffy looking, eh? The first idea to display the postcards is just this easy, with the hoop standing on it’s side:
But another idea is to lay it on its base and to let it double as place is disguise storage. Sometimes there are items, like a modem or router, that you need to have out but you don’t really want to have visible. Set the postcard hoop on a shelf, on top of the fridge, etc. and just place whatever items you want to keep out of sight inside the hoop!
The third idea is to make a centerpiece out of your postcards! Put candles in the middle (just not too close to the paper postcards) and enjoy the glow of the places you’ve visited.
It might be neat to use for wedding table centerpieces, and have postcards from places that are special to the couple. You could even have guests each take a postcard and write a bit of marriage advice on it, and then put it back in the centerpiece. If you’re worried about the flame, one reader suggested battery operated tea lights – great idea!
Or, for the last idea, if you’re feeling more ambitious, line multiple embroidery hoops of different sizes with postcards, and hang them at staggered heights to create a chandelier effect.
I hope you liked these simple ideas on how to upcycle an embroidery hoop and display your postcards.
And I’d love to hear – how do you display your postcards? Or do you collect something else from your travels?
Leave your thoughts and comments below, I love to hear from you!
I love post cards! What a neat way to use them!
Thanks! :)
very lovely! (i’d like the last one!)
i love postcards, but with internet friends prefer to send an email more than a postcards (that in the last years become very expensive!!)
but i have a lot of old postcards… and it seems also a good idea for create a photos album!
thanks for sharing
Ahh, yeah, I’m not so good about actually sending postcards …. I just get them to collect beautiful photos of the places I’ve been, haha :)
Yeah, I also do that! I am too selfish to part with them. :-)
In fact I send postcards to myself while travelling with the details where I am at that moment. It’s always nice to come back home & read your own postcards. Lifelong memories to cherish. :-)
What a neat idea!!! :)
I do this too! I did it from all my stops in France and London and it is so fun to get them in the mail with the post mark from the town you sent them. I returned before they got to my mail box, so it was a fun reminder of my recent trip. I think I’ll use those and do the hoop display idea! This would be really cute with vintage “greetings from…” postcards as well!
I do this too! It is very useful as a reminder of the year I travel to places.
that’s so cool! i like the idea with the candles. or maybe you could use one of those battery powered touch lights? looks awesome :)
Great idea! I added it into the post, thanks! :)
I love this idea! I’ll bet I could do this with photos instead of postcards because I definitely have more of the former than the latter. :)
Yeah, you could definitely do this with photos, too!
I love postcards and have been collecting them for years. All my friends send them when they go somewhere with notes and I have tons I’ve collected as souvenirs. I used them as a border around the top of the room in my office. Fun and interesting!
Neat idea, thanks for sharing! :)
I have too many postcards (more than 100). I really liked the idea of having different sized hoops which I already have. ;) but to have so many hoops is not advisable. Can you suggest for this large no. of cards. At present I keep them in a photo album.
Hi Nisha! Oh, yes, I have very very many postcards, too – way to many to keep them ALL out in hoops! But I’ll tell you kind of my thoughts on this type of thing – I think a key to displaying collections is to not overwhelm by displaying TOO many at a time. Plus, I think it’s nice to keep things fresh by cycling through different parts of a collection and enjoying each part at a time. So, many of my postcards are still in an album, but this gives a way to display a portion of them at a time. And then after you’ve displayed those 15 or 20 for a while, then you can trade them out for some new ones and put a different set in the hoops! You could even display postcards on a theme – like in this post, they are all NYC postcards. Personally, I think doing it this way where you display a portion at a time is preferable to displaying all of them at the same time, because it’s hard to really take in dozens and dozens at a time, but about 10-20, and then trading out different sets every so often keeps it fresh. Anyway, that’s just kind of my thoughts on it! :)
it’s cool…I usually keep my postcards on an album,,,do you want to swap with me? ;)
Valuable info. Lucky me I discovered your web site accidentally, and I am stunned why this accident didn’t came about in advance!
I bookmarked it.