Why Keep Old Postcards, Brochures, and Holiday Diaries?

What do you do with old postcards and letters home and birthday cards and xmas cards?

Recycling Xmas Cards and Birthday Cards
Angela Lansbury I keep birthday cards at the back of my birthday card box. Same with Christmas cards. Sometimes you have an unexpected birthday or need a xmas card and can't get to the shops. You can create a novelty card using the collage of parts of old cards.

When you get older and your parents and friends start dying, you will treasure those old cards.

Your own old cards remind you of trips.

Diary With PhotosI found a diary I had made when I was at school of my my school trip to ski in Austria. All very uneventful, except for the photo of myself in old lace-up ski boots. How times have changed!

Storage and Retrieval The question is, are your souvenirs easy to find? You can store items on shelves or in shoe boxes, or shoe boxes on shelves, either in date order or by country, with an index at the front, plus another list using the other system.

For a neat effect, print out all the names of countries and years and stick the cut out words and dates on the sides of the boxes. Measure up so all the labels are level, such as two inches above the shelf.

Duplicate brochures and postcards can be used as backgrounds for the ends of the shoeboxes used to save brochures and letters.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Xmas Travel tips: Packing and DIY Christmas and birthday cards, wrapping and decorations

Problems
How do you find a Xmas card in a hurry at a Xmas party when the organiser have put a Xmas card on every place? How do you find a suitable card for Christmas and Chinese New Year?

If you wrap a present, you might have to unwrap it at security or customs. You can't even travel with a big pair of scissor in your hand luggage.

In Singapore we were invited to housewarmings, engagement parties, and to dinner with people who had just had a baby. We needed cards in a hurry.

What do you do to decorate the room in a hurry when you are too busy to go shopping or the shops are closed?

Answers
Cards And Wrapping
At home I keep a stock of Christmas and birthday cards in boxes marked Christmas and Cards. I also have a section of wrapping paper.

Storage
You can store your leftover Xmas cards and wrap in a zip up bag for about £15. Or simply keep it in a tote bag with Xmas or festive patterns. Or cover a shoe box with leftover Xmas wrapping paper.

Packing
I take a couple of spare Xmas cards in my pockets to parties and when travelling over Xmas. I have also spent hours hunting inside my suitcase for the card and wrapping twine. Days later I discovered them in the suitcase outside pocket. You might add the location of small or vital items to your packing list with the location such as; jacket pocket; in handbag; in carryon bag; in outside pocket of suitcase, in lid.

Storage and Packing
Alternatively load up a picture of your suitcase. Or keep the luggage tag when you buy the item which has a picture of the suitcase. Label the outside as A and the lid pocket as B and the back inside pocket of the base of the suitcase as C. Your hand bag similarly labelled with letters. (Not numbers, since you will use those for the numbers of pairs of socks or underwear or blouses or shirts.) Alongside each item you note where you have packed it.

You can also direct a partner or friend from the bathroom or another location to find the card or wrapping in your luggage by checking the packing list stuck on the inside lid of the suitcase.

Place names
Save place names from Xmas parties and weddings for re-use on your festive table. To check the correct spelling of names, look at your emails, or inside Xmas cards from this year (or last year, if you keep them).


Stories
On one occasion I bought a card which was all in Chinese from a rack of Chinese New Year cards in Singapore. My friend laughed a lot. A week later, when I asked her to translate it, she admitted that my card had wished her Happy Birthday.

We also had a Swiss army knife confiscated. On another occasion we had a pair of scissors confiscated at Heathrow. One person had to race around the airport to find an envelope and post it home. The other was waiting half an hour airside wondering what took so long and whether a family member had been arrested.

Tips
Keep a similar lettered checklist for items which are left in the fridge (sandwiches for the plane; chocolates for the hosts you are visiting).
Attach post-it notes to the back of your front door and remove them as you leave as you check every item.

For example:
LAST MINUTE LEAVING CHECKLIST
Passport, tickets;
Keys (one set; second set left with neighbours / family /office;
Holiday/business address and insurance details left with family;
Food for journey, drink for journey;
Items in fridge to throw out or give to neighbours or family.
Keys of second home.
Name and phone number of person who has keys to rented accommodation.
Hotel number in case of delay.
Print-out of reservation in case reception.
Xmas cards. Birthday cards. New Home cards. Chinese New Year cards.
Gifts.
Wrapping paper. Coloured string or ribbon and bows. Sticky tape.
Gold and silver pens for writing cards.

DIY Decorations
Xmas cards you have been given can be attached to a string and hung across a wall.

Crackers
I like recycling. Saved empty Xmas crackers can be linked with a string through the middle. I remove the leftover bit which you pull to make the cracking noise because I think it is a fire risk and it blocks the centre. However, it does keep the cracker rigid.

The resulting string of colours can be used as a semi-circular string of colour and glitter along a wall or table top. Or tie the ends of the string to make a wreath to hand on a door knob.

If you have whole crackers left over, even better. You can thread them together.

Or stick them vertically on the wall for a public party, ideally using removable adhesive such as Blue-tac or White tac.


Cracker Jokes
Stick half a dozen jokes from inside crackers onto a card for the centrepiece of the table at the next festive dinner party. They could also edge a printed menu of what you are serving. Or pass the joke card around the table for amusement whilst waiting for latecomers.

DIY Menu
To decorate a DIY Xmas menu, cut the pictures of festive foods from the cover or inside of a supermarket magazine. I would not take a restaurant menu. But if it's dated with a specific day so they will not use it again, you might keep it. Or ask permission.

Keep the menu card in a souvenir book of Christmas Past memories. (Put menus on the left, Xmas photos of your Xmas party on the right).

Alternatively re-use all or part of the menu to decorate your own menu. If you cannot take away the menu, or forget, photograph the menu and use part of the cropped photo to decorate your home menu.

The magazine pictures can also be used for a mosaic seasonal greetings card. You may need to buy a cheap glue or Sellotape. That's a UK brand name. Sticky tape is what you might say in the USA.

If you are in a hotel, ask a friendly receptionist if she or he has any glue, sticky tape or a stapler. Failing all else, stick paper together by bending over corners twice, or cut a slit in one piece of card, and an arrow shape in the other.

I hope this helps you.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Author and speaker.
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Wedding Anniversary International Flower Deliveries and Carrying Cards When Travelling

My neighbours had a wedding anniversary. When I went to write a card, I wondered, which anniversary is which? Are they celebrating a ruby wedding anniversary?

Luckily I had written a book of their family history in which I recorded their wedding year. I had the decade. It was a diamond wedding. The other way you can tell is by the age of their children - assuming the children are from the current marriage and that they got married before they had children, rather than in reverse order which seems to be the modern trend.

A Card Box
I have a box of cards which I bought from a card company which used to send cards every month. After I had more cards than I needed I continued buying inexpensive or pretty cards whenever I saw one so I have a stock and don't need to go out in the rain looking when I need one in a hurry. The cards themselves told me the answer.

Anniversaries

A silver wedding celebrates 25 years.

A ruby wedding celebrates 40 years.

A golden wedding celebrates 50 years.

A diamond wedding celebrates 60 years. (So a couple who married in their twenties will both be in their eighties.)

However, in my card collection I had only cards for silver, ruby and golden. I suppose a diamond wedding is rarer. (Especially nowadays!)

I also had cards which said to my husband and to my wife, which were not appropriate for a friend or neighbour.

Card Making
My card looked very nice when I wrote it. I chose a pretty card with what looked like mock diamonds on it.

I stuck on gold stickers with pictures of champagne and the words of congratulation and 60.

Time spent, about half an hour. While I was at it, I labelled the box. It might have been quicker to buy a card. (But it was pouring with rain. And a shopping trip would have distracted me with other purchases.)

However, when I arrived at my neighbours' house, my little card looked rather small next to the giant cards which others had bought.

In retrospect, I could have cut the small card into two and stuck the decorative part onto a large plain card. I also have large plain cards and have not know what to do with them. When you are able to deliver a card in person, you don't have to worry about the cost of postage or whether the post office has a size limit on cards or whether it will bend int the machines. Your only problem is to keep the envelope and card covered out of the rain.

Personal Delivery
So, my card looked too small. But it's the thought that counts and I was there in person with a card and flowers and sparkling wine for tea time.

International Flower Deliveries
A lovely bouquet of flowers sent by the couple's daughter and son-in-law and family from the USA were supposed to be delivered in the UK between 9 am and 10 am. (From Waitrose supermarket, by delivery company Yodel.)

Instead of joy, the late delivery of the lowers was causing aggravation. The daughter was on the phone from the USA, probably on Skype, asking everybody to check in the garage and see if the flowers had been delivered.

The flowers finally arrived after I did, about 5 pm. The box was battered on top and re-packaged with tape, rather alarmingly, but the flowers were inside were fine.

Carrying Cards On Holiday and Business Trips
When I travel to the Far East I usually take two or three cards with me for birthdays, weddings and new home. Even if I am not expecting to need one, I have something ready. I always find an unexpected invitation.


Spare Xmas Cards
I used to keep Xmas cards in my handbag when I went to my club Xmas parties. One of the groups I went to, Harrow Writers Circle, had a box for Xmas cards. You saved postage by sending to half a dozen people, or everybody. The president of the club had a card for every member. I always found somebody I did not know well or had forgotten had sent me a card. I could also check the spelling of their name on the card they had sent me. Then to write my card and sign inconspicuously I slipped into the coat room or the bathroom (to anybody in the USA it would be called rest room in a public place).

Chinese New Year Cards
On my first trip to the Far East I arrived at Christmas and extended my trip into the Chinese New Year. I was sent Chinese New Year cards.

I had to reciprocate. I went to a local supermarkets and department stores and spent the whole morning finding cards. They were entirely in Chinese.

My first shop took an hour. I eventually found a lovely card. I bought two in order to have a spare. I later stopped somebody in the street and asked them to translate. They told me it said Happy Birthday. Disaster!

I dashed back into another shop and saw a rack of cards. I asked an assistant for Chinese New Year cards. All sold out. I found another rack elsewhere in the shop. I asked, "What are these?" Cards for bereavement, condolences. Oh dear. Meanwhile, my family are phoning me saying, "Where are you? We are waiting for you to have our lunch. What's taking so long!"

Now you know why I keep a card box and travel with spare cards.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.