Postcard Guestbook/Need Suggestions

thejinxchan

Just wanted to share with you ladies, also need some help!

Our theme is travel, and it's being held in an aviation museum. Our guestbook will be postcards from around the world (I'm an international flight attendant so getting them is quite easy!) and we were thinking of a way to bind them (they are all different sizes.. why can't they regulate postcard size?!), but then decided to use a fake book box to store them!

But I'm having issues finding a way to display them. Postcard racks are ridiculously expensive, and I thought of a desktop letterrack, but most nice looking ones are about $10 plus and I would need about 4-6 of them. I'm also using boarding passes as escort cards, so would need to display those in a similar fashion, too. I have searched the web, ebay, etsy, etc. for letter racks! I don't live in the US but will be going home to Arizona in a day or so, so I will be on the lookout for a solution, as it is the last time I'll be home before my wedding.

I have almost enough postcards (wedding is 8 months away so plenty of time), as you can see, my cat thought she was helping.. as for the "book", I already owned it and was using it as a keepsake collection for ticket stubs, etc. So I may use the same one or buy a nicer one.

Any ideas on how to affordably display these cards without ending up owning a bunch of expensive letter racks?

AddieCake

Can't people just pick them up from off the table to choose one to write on? 

Knottie69225743

We are using postcards throughout our wedding. You could hang them on twine with clothespins. I just painted these clothespins the other day. I think they turned out cute.

theartistformerlyknownas

Yeah I'd just scatter them on a table. I think you're overthinking this.

ohannabelle

Ah-ha! CD holders. There are the wire ones, almost like dish racks? Or wood ones, the ikea sort, more like card files. Either sort could be painted easily to blend with your decor, and I'm sure much cheaper than an actual retail display rack.

feignducky

Simply you can scatter them. or make something.

There's tons of tutorials for pocket/card making and how to store a variety of cards/paper/chlidren's artwork with what you got on hand.

If you do the string/twine an easy way to decorate clothespins- Washi tape. Some people use wire mesh to clip on. You can glue clothespins to primed boards you got from home depot/lowes (they cut em down to size too, if you ask nicely).

 More alternates: Re-use slatted shutters? Create/get a padded memo board with ribbon and thumb tacks and tuck the small stacks in. If you are crafty, you can create paper pockets for each and mount them on something. 

If you have a smaller foot print, You could visit a cigar shop (with a few cards in hand) and ask to buy an empty box to hold them. Use cardstock (or old file folders) and cut out dividers to label each variety. It sorts the different cards, and they are still easy to find, it can still look pretty. 

[Deleted User]

I don't think you need to display the postcards at all.  They need to be in a stack or several stacks for people to look through to pick one to write on.  They they just need something to toss them into.

plainjane0415

adk19 said:

I don't think you need to display the postcards at all.  They need to be in a stack or several stacks for people to look through to pick one to write on.  They they just need something to toss them into.

I would just have them stacked, and then have maybe a little card box or a cute little mailbox with a slit in the top to put the postcards in.  I don't know... you might think that's cheesy, but that was the first thing that came to mind when I thought "postcard"

[Deleted User]

I would take maybe an empty picture frame and hang string across it and use little clothes pins or something similar to that

primafaba15

I agree that you could probably just scatter them artfully on a table and be done with it. 

If you really want something to display them in, though, do you have any kind of old-fashioned flat suitcase that you could use? They also sell decorative boxes made up to look like suitcases at places like AC Moore and Michaels (for that mater, I think Oriental Trading does too, for even less money). We are thinking of using an open suitcase for our card box. You could scatter a pile of postcards inside the suitcase with a note inside the lid for people to sign one. 

For the boarding passes, I would probably just line them up nicely on a table if you can. Alternately, if you could find a sort of small, inexpensive alphabetical file (that would stand on its own), that might be an option. Depending on how large the boarding passes you've made are, you might be able to find an index card box / alphabetical tabs, for instance.