Postcrossing Blog

Sometimes, mail has really good timing, don’t you think? It makes us smile at the end of a particularly bad day, or sometimes… it serendipitously put us in touch with the right people at the right time! I’ll let Loli-ts, the recipient of a very timely postcard tell this lovely friendship story:

"This is the story of a postcard and two people… I’m Loli-ts (aka Dolores), living next to Barcelona, in Spain. On February 5, 2014 I received a beautiful view of Prague from azuzanka (aka Zuzana), from Prague in the Czech Republic.

Postcards are magical windows. It’s always a pleasure to see a piece of the world, and to read the handwriting of someone that you have never met, saying warm words and inviting you to look through the window of her or his eyes. So, I was happy to read the message from Zuzana… yes, specially happy this time: she said she was coming to Barcelona just some days later!

When I registered the card, I also invited Zuzana to ask for advice about their visit to Barcelona and, of course, to meet each other when she were here. And yes, we did!

We made a nice walk from their hotel through the Old Town of my city, discovering the spirit of the district, some hidden spots and secrets of story… and specially, we discovered new friends. Postcards and Postcrossing where a main subject of our conversation. And of our photos too!

Thanks to Postcrossing, Ana, Paulo and all the people who work to make possible this great project and so many wonderful experiences as this one was!"

Text: Dolores T. (Loli-ts); Photos: Tomás H., sent by Zuzana A. (azuzanka)

Thank you Loli-ts and azuzanka for sharing your story with us! :)

What about you? Do you have your own Postcrossing story? Do share, we’d love to hear it!

Sometimes we think the Dutchies have all the luck! They have stroopwafles, vla, tulips, scrumptious cheese… and all the best postcard shops, it seems!

We already told you about a few of our favourites, and today we feature another fantastic one: Kaartfanaat!

Kaartfanaat stocks an impressive range of publishers: from Tushita to Aquarupella, from Inkognito to Kartoenfabriek… including all the variations of “Keep calm and…” you can think of! :)

They heard about Postcrossing from some of their customers, and since they know how we all love our postcards, they’ve decided to generously sponsor this weekend’s giveaway with 5 packs of 10 of their best-selling postcards!

To win one of these fantastic sets, visit Kaartfanaat's website and leave a comment below, telling us which postcard (or series) you liked the best! But be prepared… choosing from so much eye-candy will be a hard task! :)

Good luck! Do check back on this post around this time next week for the winners (randomly picked by Paulo’s number generator).

PS – For the duration of this giveaway, Kaartfanaat is also offering a 10% discount on all orders from €10 (excl. shipping). Use the code BLOG during checkout!

Good news! We’ve just received another adventure-filled missive from the Little Mail Carriers… all the way from Ålesund, a coastal town in Norway! Their host Cathrine (aka Norway_girl) showed them all the best sights in town, including the wonderful aquarium, where they got to meet the cuddle-loving wolffishes!

Hello everyone! Earlier this year, we were in Ålesund, Norway. It is called the The Art Nouveau City, as the city was built up in Art Nouveau style after a fire on January 23, 1904.

On our first day, we were taken for a walk at Sunnmøre Museum. Everyone can walk around among the old buildings for free. It was so interesting to see those old wooden houses with grass on the roof!

The original settlement in the area was built 12000 years ago and lasted until the Viking age, about 1000 years ago. In the main building, there were many interesting exhibitions about things like how yarn was colored in the old days, folk costumes, old rooms, tools for typical crafts… It was fascinating!

We did also find a perfect place to watch the mountains. Being close to the sea and see the snow covered mountain tops at the same time is very nice!

While walking in the forest, we meet a man who was cycling there, so we had to try that ourselves too…but it was harder to bicycle on the forest path than on a road! So we decided to just relax on the the view point, where we could sit on a bench and look at the city and the surrounding islands.

A high point of our stay was the visit to Atlanterhavsparken, one of Northern Europe’s largest salt water aquariums, where we got to see many of the creatures that are found in the North Atlantic Ocean! In addition to that, we did also see some tropical fishes, included clown fishes, turtles and really cute Humboldt penguins, which were being hand-fed at the time of our visit! You can see them running for their grub in this cool video that our host filmed! :)

There’s a huge tank in Atlanterhavsparken, called The Atlantic Tank…

… which contains 4 million liters of water and several hundred big fishes of 11 species that live in the North Atlantic Ocean (for instance cod, saithe and wolffish). Every day, a scuba diver hand feeds the fishes in the Atlantic Tank. That was so cool to watch! We were told that the wolffishes are the kindest fishes in the tank… they like to be cuddled! :D

We did also get time to write some postcards, and walked through the city town in search for a mailbox… Oh, here they are! A yellow one for mail to nearby places, and a red one for the rest of the mail!

Then we visited Jugendstilsenteret (The Art Nouveau Style Centre), which tells about the Ålesund fire and the rebuilding of the city. There’s even a time machine there, where we could travel back in time to 1904, to see what the city looked like before the devastating fire.

During our stay, we learned that Norwegians love to be outside, in the nature – so we decided to do like them, and go for a walk at the city mountain Aksla. What a view we got of the city and the surrounding islands!

And what about Norwegian food? Well, we discovered that Norwegians love their bread!. They eat so much bread… for breakfast, lunch and evening meal! And if you’re ever in Norway, remember not to put a second slice of bread on top of the first one – that’s a big no-no!

Here in Norway, they’ve got a brown cheese, a sweet cheese, and they’ve even got a weird device for slicing it! We also got to taste kjøttkaker (meatballs, on the left) and lefse (a soft flatbread, on the right). They were delicious! :D

“Shall we grab some more of that yummy cheese before we leave, Little Paulo?”
“Oh yes please! I never say no to cheese! :D”

Now I’m hungry too! Thank you so much Norway_girl, for this lovely report! The adventure continues…

Recently, on another of those random browsing sessions (which we like to call “research”), I stumbled upon some fantastic postcards! At first glance they looked like perfectly normal, vintage postcards… but upon further inspection you start noticing the suspiciously out of place aliens, robots and all kinds of terrific spaceships and creatures!

Whoa! Isn’t it amazing? I can totally picture Darth Vader having some ice-cream while levitating his journal! :D After marveling at his Flickr gallery for a while, I decided to ask Italian illustrator Franco Brambilla about his fantastic creations. He replied promptly and was happy to give us some insight into his geek postcards:

Can you explain to us in your own words what your project “Invading the Vintage” is about? And what inspired you to do it?

“Invading the vintage” is an art project that I started in 2007… mainly for fun and because I wanted to create some nerd art. :) Cute aliens invade grandparents postcards! I’m an Italian illustrator in love with sci-fi. I have been illustrating science-fiction books since 1998 for a big Italian publisher. I also love vintage postcards, I have a little collection of Italian and world vintage postcards from the 50/60/70s.

Invading the vintage meshes 3D models (which I have to do for work) with my postcards and the result is quite funny and surreal. After a while I started to invade postcards with characters and ships from TV shows and movies, and also sci-fi movies from when I was a kid in the 70s.

I can see that you sort of specialize in drawing science-fiction themes and geek art. Was this a deliberate move in your career or did it just sort of happen?

I started for fun but I was already a specialized sci-fi illustrator. My 3D artworks are quite different from “Invading the vintage” and usually have a different audience. “Invading the vintage” is quite popular in the internet and I’m not tired to create some more. Geeks and nerds like me love them, I found out I’m not the only one who started to personalize childhood sci-fi myths… geek art is a reality! :)

Are you a big fan of science-fiction? And if so, do you have any favorite series of your own?

I love sci-fi in any form, my favourite shows are the British Space 1999 and UFO, but also Star Wars and Star trek.

Which kind of science-fiction items do you prefer drawing? Are some more fun to draw than others?

Aliens and robots are the best, I love to put them in 60's postcards interacting with people… the result is so retro futuristic!

Where do you find your vintage postcards? Are you a collector?

I’m an amateur, not a serious collector, but I have 400/500 postcards… I usually buy them in street markets but my friends also give me more from around the world to be invaded.

Thank you Franco, that was lovely!

Franco’s postcards are available worldwide on his Zazzle.com shop. If you’re in Europe, you might want to purchase them through his UK, DE, FR or ES shops.

David (aka david2051) is passionate about giving, be it through micro-lending or by sponsoring children in poor countries. He likes to share his Postcrossing cards with his sponsored kids, and says they love to receive them! :)

Here is what he had to say to our interview questions:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

My very close friend Ryan told me about Postcrossing and the wonderful postcards he had received and it sounded like fun so I thought I’d give it a try.

I was so surprised when, shortly before going on a vacation to New York City, I received Ryan’s address for an official card! I had a great time finding a postcard for him and then mailing it from the United Nations post office with UN postage.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies? What are you passionate about?

I’ve been interested for some time in doing my part to help fight poverty. For several years I was very involved in microlending on Kiva.org and I co-captain the Postcrossing team on Kiva, along with Ana and Paulo. As a team of 100 members, we’ve made 946 loans in 66 different countries. It would be great for more postcrossers to give it a try!

In the last few years though I’ve gotten very involved in child sponsorship through Children International. A small monthly donation helps provide medical and dental care, clothing, shoes and supplies for school, some tutoring and after school classes as well as access to safe playgrounds, sports and financial literacy programs, libraries and computer labs. In addition you can exchange letters and of course postcards and photos with your child and their family. I now sponsor six children in five countries: Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile, Zambia and the Philippines. In addition I belong to three sponsorship groups (where up to 12 people sponsor one child) for kids in Zambia, Mexico and Colombia.

This collage shows all my kids plus two children sponsored by my friends.

For me one of the most satisfying aspects of sponsoring is being able to provide assistance beyond the monthly support. Whether through individual donations or fundraising efforts, this can include anything from assistance in shopping for food, clothing or birthday and Christmas gifts to digging a well to provide safe drinking water, from helping a single mother establish a small restaurant or cafe…

…to paying off a pedicab loan so a father can retain an additional 35% of his daily income or putting a new roof on a home to keep out the typhoon rains.

Of course I wanted to share Postcrossing with my sponsored kids too! I asked on my profile if anyone would want to send postcards to my sponsored kids, as an official card or for swaps or just as extra cards, and the postcrossing community has really come through. Since July of 2012 I’ve received well over 200 cards for my kids! Several people have sent envelopes containing one card for each child, and some people have sent them cards more than once. It’s just amazing how kind and thoughtful the members of Postcrossing are!

I think this is a fantastic way to widen the horizons of these kids, to share views, greetings and words of encouragement from countries all over the world; it really inspires them to learn more about the world and set bigger goals. When my kids write me letters they always express so much appreciation for the cards and sometimes they include messages back to the senders as well.

There is a wonderful community of Children International sponsors and I blog about my sponsorship experience and the postcard I’ve received for my kids so many sponsors have learned about Postcrossing at the same time many postcrossers have learned about child sponsorship. I think we all benefit and the two go so well together since the sponsorship experience revolves around exchanging letters and cards with these wonderful kids.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

This postcard shows our old post office, sadly no longer used as such, but it’s still a major landmark of downtown Evansville.

This is my mail slot. I can’t wait for the mail to arrive each day! I couldn’t believe I got 6 official cards today! :-)

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

Oh, I’m sorry, I can’t pick just one…

This one means so much to me as I love Seattle and gnomes! It just brings back so many good memories!

The card below is a favorite because of the immigrant story the image of the steamship RMS Majestic can tell us if we take the time to see it. I like to do family research, so I thought it was fascinating to read about a family researcher whose grandmother brought her children here on this steamship, and the postcard image is actually the cover or jacket for her ticket to a new life in America.

And this is a wonderful handpainted card. It’s such an honor to receive a card that took so much effort and love to make. I think this shows how postcrossing brings out the very best in people.

But there are so many awesome viewcards too…

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

All of it! When I get a new address I love reading the profile, learning about the recipient’s location, and viewing their favorites to find the perfect card or making one for them. When I receive a card I also read the sender’s profile and study their favorites to get to know them better. I love to study the location depicted on the card and usually look up as much as I can online and place the links I find in the comments and I love the beautiful stamps. Whether meeting nice people in a brief exchange or becoming penpals and cherished friends, it’s all a wonderful experience.