Postcrossing Blog

We have mentioned before how Postcrossing as a school project can be a great idea. Teachers all over the world are discovering how to use Postcrossing as an educational tool. English, geography, culture – there’s so much one can learn through postcards!

Adriana Salim is one of those teachers and we are happy to be able to share with you all how her experience has been.

I am an English teacher at a public school in Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil. I teach classes to teenagers who keep me busy trying to get them interested and motivated. The dean of the school where I work found out about Postcrossing and here we are, the students and I, involved in sending and receiving cards.

I surely couldn’t have run into something more helpful! Everybody waits anxiously for the mail and the school mailbox is checked every single day. Isn’t it fun to learn English this way? Each student is a single user. They write and receive their own cards. Our enthusiasm has also hooked the Biology teacher who has joined Postcrossing with his own kids at home.

We have many projects at the school: theater, dance, environment protection, reading and Postcrossing! Some of the students take part in more than one project.

Before Postcrossing, the students used to swap cards among themselves to practice their English skills. Nowadays we realise that it’s much more fun to write real postcards with Postcrossing.

This is where we have our Postcrossing meetings once a week.

Our postcards are mailed to the school address. The mail is always brought by the same mailman. We go to the main post office downtown for stamps. We usually post our cards once a week at a smaller facility. The students keep their own cards at home in albums or on a wallboard. Now and then we display all the received cards at school.

This is our mailman delivering some mail and the school mailbox.

This is the board we keep the cards sent to the group as a whole.

This is the main post office where we buy stamps.

We once had a picture of the cards exhibition we prepared to celebrate the 18th anniversary of our school on the first page of Petrópolis newspaper.

As part of that commemoration a school postcard was created and is now available to be send by the students.

Thank you Adriana for sharing this with us!

Have other stories on how Postcrossing is being used on education? Then let us know! We love to hear about them.

It’s the World Post Day, did you know? It’s celebrated every year, on the 9th of October and it commemorates the founding of the UPU (Universal Postal Union) in 1874 in Bern, Switzerland Capital.

So today, across the world, post offices are celebrating this special day in many different ways. This includes: special philatelic exhibitions, free entrance in postal museums, introducing new products and services, special cancellation marks, seminars, workshops and more!

Actually, in some countries you can even get free goodies (like free postage!) so be sure to check the website for the post offices of your country (hint: if you don’t know the link you can find it in your country page in Postcrossing). Let us know your findings in the comments of this post!

So, go out, buy some postcards or some nice letter paper and write to all your friends and family; remind them that the post is a very important part of our lives.

Happy World Post Day!

As most Postcrossers, Judit enjoys getting surprises in her mailbox in Belgium. And despite being mom of four, she still finds time for Postcrossing! Here’s what she has to share with us.

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

In June 2006 there was a message by Postcrossing member szirmaik on a Hungarian Forum site. I was curious and checked it out. Since then I’m hooked on Postcrossing. As I don’t get a lot of mail, it’s a nice way to get “unexpected” surprise mail.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

My other hobby is cross-stitching which I also started in 2006. Right now, I have little free time because I gave birth to my 4th child in June 2010.

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

This is where I receive mail:

And this is where I send it:

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

Through the years I have received so many beautiful cards that I can’t decide which is the most precious. Some cards tell me about something I’ve never known before. Some of them are what I really like. Some of them show things I’ve never thought of before.

Present&Correct is our kind of stationery shop: filled with tastefully handpicked goods from all over the world, ready to brighten up any desk. Updated weekly with sophisticated items & retro finds, you’ll find that every single notecard, rubber stamp or set of masking tapes is a temptation.

Going through a bit of nostalgia? They have original telegram envelopes, old-fashioned library stamps, or kitschy postcard sets in funky popcorn bags.

Or perhaps you’d fancy something a bit more modern? Try this Stamp Sheet Wall Planner, the Stencil greetings card or the unexpected Chalk Clipboard.

To write this review, I spent hours going through the selection and trying to narrow my wishlist to just a couple of items to order. The checkout was quick & efficient, and the goods arrived within the same week (they’re based in the UK, but ship worldwide).

First, let me show you the Giant Button card, which is a cute letterpress card on the shape of a button, in a white envelope. The reverse of the card simply says “You’re as cute as a button”. How cute is that? Perfect to cheer someone up – instant smile guaranteed!

Then, we have the Russian doll card. This is a very clever card, where the successively smaller matryoshkas are folded into the larger ones. Even the envelope is pretty neat! :)

Some years ago, I stumbled on an interesting project by Craig Giffen called The Human Clock, which is a clock that shows the time with pictures submitted by people. The way it works is, for every minute in a day the clock shows a photo that has been submitted by a random contributor, in a random place, using a number of different ways to show the time. For example:

The same developer also brought us a widget, The Human Calendar that maybe you’ve seen before on a blog or website. It’s shows the current date with people:

These days, Craig is working on a new project, The Mail Clock! It is basically the same idea of the Human Clock (a site that shows the time) but this time using mail items that he receives. Like this:

He’s looking for help to complete this new project, so if you have an extra postcard, head over to the project’s site for details on how to help. Remember to be creative!

We can’t wait to see the final result! :)