Eid Mubarak: Ramadan cards on swap-bot

I started a swap for Eid al-Fitr cards on Swap-Bot today in honor of Ramadan, which, this year, starts in two weeks and runs through October 11. It’s actually quite annoying to me that none of the main-stream greeting card sites ever include Ramadan in the holiday offerings, even for e-cards. I suppose it’s made more difficult by the fact that Ramadan is a moving holiday (it gets earlier each year by 11 days due to the lunar calendar used by Islam.) However, e-cards for most of holidays are available year round so you can schedule them in advance, but many of these sites do not offer Ramadan cards at all.

Last year I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the USPS offers Eid stamps every October (which is going to make them look foolish in just another year or so; by October this year, Ramadan will nearly be over. Next year, it won’t be in October at all…hopefully they’ll adjust their calendars accordingly.) Since I could not find Eid cards to send to my Muslim friends last year, I sent them generic greeting cards and used an Eid postage stamp, the best I could do. This year however, I decided to take matters into my own hands; I have made a couple Eid greeting cards that I plan to use for my friends. (I had high hopes for selling them, but did not get enough of them finished to act on this hope. If I can make several more in the next week, maybe I can sell them at the local Muslim markets. But the money isn’t even the issue; I just don’t think it’s fair that it’s so difficult to find cards for Eid when cards for Hanukkah, Diwali (a Hindu festival) and even Kwanza abound.)

In honor of expanding the cultural offerings on swap-bot, I decided to go ahead with this swap. I do not know how many (if any) takers I’ll get for the swap, but as long as I get even one other person, I am going to be thrilled. And maybe seeing the name of an Islamic holiday on swap-bot will broaden the horizons of some of the swappers, which in the words of Martha Stewart, is “a good thing.”

Click here  if you’d like to join the swap. Newbies to card making and/or swap-bot are welcome. I’ll update this post with my cards when they are finished, so check back often.