In theory, we all know what happens when something goes through the mail: it is picked up, put in crates and boxes, gets sorted more or less automatically, and is finally delivered by the hands of the local postman. If you've ever seen a mail sorting center before, you know that there are hundreds of meters of conveyor belts involved, and all sorts of complicated sorting machines... but what does it look like from a "parcel's perspective"? How many people touch it? How long does it sit around just... waiting?

Designer Ruben van der Vleuten wondered about these things, and instead of sitting still, he came up with a simple solution to solve this mistery: a camera, hidden inside a parcel!

Inside the parcel there's also a small Arduino circuit, with a timer which tells the camera to film more when the package is moving, and less when it is stopped. The result is the amazing video below:

Pretty neat, huh? Check out Ruben's page, to see what the parcel looked like from the inside! :)

Yay! It's our birthday today! Time does fly when you're having fun, eh? Every single year, we're in awe of what this (once) tiny project has become, and how many lives it has touched. We're immensely grateful for your kind words, enthusiasm and continued support throughout these 7 years! :)

We know you're dying to know which videos we've picked... so here it goes, in no particular order:

Giacatalan, you have some great video skills! :)

LeishaCamden, your words mean a lot to us!

And Ejsirk, what a nice stop-motion video - we loved to see you jump!

Congratulations! The three of you will receive your prizes from MOO and Postcard Locker!

This was a very tough choice... we were seriously impressed by all the nice videos that many of you took the time to make, and had a lot of fun (and even got a little teary-eyed here and there) checking them out. You rock!

Now it's time to send some postcards, blow some candles and eat a piece of cake! Please do have one too! :)

Meet Melvin, a portable and complex contraption made just with the purpose of signing and stamping postcards!

"Conveniently built in two old suitcases, Melvin the Mini Machine is a Rube Goldberg machine specifically designed to travel the world. Each time Melvin fully completes a run, he ‘signs’ a postcard and sticks a stamp to it - making it ready to be sent."

Melvin was created by design studio HEYHEYHEY, because they had some time to kill and needed a challenge to their creativity. How much fun would it be to have one of these for our own postcards? :D

Thank you mothwriter and badshaped, for forwarding us the video!

What is it like to be a postman? What are the joys and the perils of the job? Is it a "normal" 9 to 5 job? What is the career like?

We've wondered about these and other questions, until we found a video that answers them all! Gary Poole is a postman for the Royal Mail, and told icould.com all about his job, in this short video interview:

What do you think? Would you like to be a postman or a postwoman?

On a different note, the winners of last week's stamp-postcards giveaway have just been randomly picked by Paulo's little script! They are StojakSiblings from Germany and Renessaince from Belarus. Congratulations! And a big thank you to everyone who shared their favourite stamps on the comments - we've discovered some real gems!

Last week, our friend Iris sent us the link to the videoclip below, which brought a big smile to our faces. The song is a little balad called 'I won't give up', by Jason Mraz.

The tunes are nice, but what really caught our attention was the amount of stationery displayed in this clip! It's full of old-school envelopes, stamps, cancelation marks and postcards!

Doesn't it make you want to write someone a love letter? What are you waiting for? :)

PS - German and/or Chinese users can see the video here or here.