Postcrossing Blog

We know many Postcrossers take their yearly break in the upcoming weeks to relax and visit new places.

If you are one of those and you’ll be away from your home or school address for a while, we recommend you to switch your account to the Inactive status – you can do that easily just by editing your Postcrossing account. This will tell Postcrossing not to give your address to any other member while you are away.

When you’re back, all you need to do is to switch it back to Active and you’ll be back in business again! Rest assured, all your due postcards will then be sent your way.

Oh, and don’t forget to re-stock with postcards from the places where you’ll be spending your days away!

Bon voyage!

We’ve discovered Irwin Terry’s wonderful blog by accident, but were instantly captivated by his passion and dedication to illustrator Edward Gorey. As his works are featured in so many postcards, we invited Irwin to write a post about this famous American artist. :) So tell us Irwin, who was Edward Gorey?

Edward Gorey (1925 – 2000) was an American illustrator, writer and humorist who lived in New York City and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Mr. Gorey wrote and illustrated over 100 books, illustrated hundreds of books for other authors, provided the animation for Mystery! on PBS, and won a Tony Award for the 1979 Broadway production of Dracula. He was also a postcard aficionado, promoter, and a postcard collector. From an early age, Mr. Gorey created and sent interesting correspondence to friends and family, much of which was embellished by hand.

In 1976 he created his first set of postcard images titled The Broken Spoke which appeared in Sports Illustrated and was also published in book form. He went on to create and publish sets of postcards with themes ranging from Neglected Murderesses to Scene de Ballet. From 1984 to 1996, Mr. Gorey created a special annual post card for National Post Card Week. When designing postcards, Edward Gorey took the nom de plume of Dogear Wyrde, one of the many anagram names he created.

Due to his signature style of drawing and amusing images, many of his illustrations have been used as postcard images. Today, the best place to find/purchase Edward Gorey – illustrated postcards is The Edward Gorey House museum in Yarmouthport, MA. The gift shop at the museum sells over 50 different postcard images as well as books of postcards created by Mr. Gorey.

For more information on Mr. Gorey, his postcard images and his work, you can visit my Edward Gorey collecting blog.

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! :)

How’s your Postcrossing video coming along? Have you seen the lovely submissions we got during this week? They’re great – we’re in awe of your skills and dedication!

If you haven’t rolled up your sleeves yet and need a little bit of motivation to start shooting, let us tell you about the lovely prizes we have for the winners!

We will pick the 3 best videos, and each will receive:

• A voucher for printing 20 postcards from MOO (shipping included!). You can take advantage of MOO’s Printfinity technology, and print 20 different postcards with it!
• A pack of 25 cool animal postcards from Postcard Locker, shipped directly from Guyana!

Thank you MOO and Postcard Locker for sponsoring this contest!

So what are you waiting for? Dust off your camera, and start filming! You only have until July 13th…

On July 14th, it will be Postcrossing’s 7th birthday… and a birthday means a party! Are you up to some birthday goodies? :)

Your mission, if you wish to accept it, is to make a short video, telling or showing the world why you like Postcrossing. Put your imagination to work, and surprise us!

Put it online, and leave a comment below with a link to it until July 13th, by midnight UTC. There will be prizes for the best ones!

We look forward to seeing your creative videos!