Postcrossing Blog

We like to see Postcrossing as a hobby for the whole family. It might sound strange, but it’s true that very few hobbies can be done by such a wide age group. We have Postcrossers of all ages and we believe it’s quite special that Postcrossing can reach everyone, independently of it’s age, gender and, of course, geographic location.

Today we have learned from a Postcrosser and its use for the postcard exchanges: Postcrossing as a school project. She is a teacher in a school which used Postcrossing as a tool for teaching geography and history to the students. We couldn’t be happier about this so we asked if we could share the story with everyone. Here’s the transcript of what she told us:

In my second grade classroom, we have been Postcrossing for most of our school year. Recently, our 100th postcard arrived! Each student, myself (teacher), and 3 adult helpers prepared reports about an assigned country from which we received a postcard. Projects from my class of 7 – 9 year olds included powerpoint presentations, dioramas, posters, travel guides, fact books, and more. Each student took turns sharing and teaching the other students about their assigned country.

Then last Friday, with help from parents, we had our party. We sampled food from different parts of the world, match Moomin and Miffy on-line, revisited our projects, and played a geography trivia game.

I want to thank everyone who may have sent us a card! This has been such a fun and exciting project. My class has not only learned about their world, they have learned that different cultures, languages, thoughts, and ideas are what makes our world more FUN! This project was also a very unexpected lesson in history. Other Postcrossers who sent us cards did an EXCELLENT job of providing information about where they live. Because of your information, my second graders know a wealth of information from all over the world. It helped sharpen their problem solving and research skills.

For the last day of school, my students will each take home a few cards from different countries and US states. They are already starting to pick out their favorites.

I will, without a doubt, do this again with next year’s class, and every year after that! THANK YOU POSTCROSSING for being the best geography-teaching tool a teacher can have!

And all we can say is thank you! And thank you for sharing this story with us all.

If you know of other interesting uses of Postcrossing, we would love to hear from you!

Don’t you find it amusing to find odd mailboxes while driving down an unfamiliar neighborhood? Most of the time, these interesting mailboxes provide a hint of the owner’s personality and values.

Owning a quirky mailbox can be so much fun as well. What else can complete the whole excitement of the mailing process than getting your mail from a fun and quirky mailbox?

Thanks to Rilda from South Australia who sent us this wonderful blog suggestion about quirky mailboxes. Here are a few examples from her local collection:

Fun, isn’t it?

Most people’s mailboxes are the traditional mail slots that are built-in into their doors or the curbside Joroleman mailboxes that are usually seen in American suburbs. However, several creative individuals have thought of a peculiar way to excite their mail carrier (and themselves) by installing odd-shaped letterboxes.

How do you feel about a letterbox shaped like a mermaid or a fisherman? What about one that looks like a mushroom? Here are a few we found on Flickr that may cause a few giggles and laugh to unsuspecting passersby:

Click on any of these for a full size picture, and to discover who took that picture and where it was taken. There are many more of these on Flickr, just search for funny mailboxes!

Do you have a quirky mailbox too? If so, how quirky is it? Share your quirky mailbox story with your fellow postcrossers!

With the summer stretching it’s arms and warming up more and more countries, the Postcrossing meetups are also on the rise. April was a particularly active month with at least 5 meetups that we know of and May seems to be following the same steps.

Finland on its own had 3 of them just in April, all in different cities throughout the country. Russia followed, and Taiwan had its first meetup in Taipei which gathered quite a few Postcrossers.

Here’s a quick run down of all the meetups that happened since the last update with links to photos of the events:

4th April

Finland, Jyväskylä (photos, photos)

12th April

Finland, Kalajoki (photos)

18th April

Taiwan, Taipei (photos, photos)

25th April

Russia, Moscow (photos)

Finland, Joensuu

6th&7th May

Finland, Helsinki (photos)

9th May

England, Ipswich

Finland, Jyväskylä (photos)

But it doesn’t stop here. There’s quite a few coming up soon! Here’s the agenda for the upcoming meetups:

17th May

Brazil, São Paulo

31st May

Portugal, Coimbra

27th June

Canada, Ontario

As usual, for the most updated list of the upcoming meetups, be sure to check the forum.

And because it’s much easier to describe the meetups with photos, here are some taken by Headstandguy on the Taipei meetup:

For more photos of this meetup, check this slideshow.

PS: By the way, soon we will be publishing details here about the upcoming International Postcrossing Meetup 2009 so keep tuned!

It’s in days like today that the power of a simple postcard becomes obvious. The World Lupus Day is celebrated today across the world, and thanks to many Postcrossers who kindly joined our LupusCrossing project, many smiles are being lit right now and many more will be created!

An impressive total of 251 butterfly postcards have flown from Postcrossers to the hands of Lupus patients, coming from many different countries. LupusCrossing has been a great success and we couldn’t be more thankful for everyone that participated on this project. The messages sent from all over the world were overwhelmingly kind and full of hope, as you can check yourself in the German Lupus Association website where all the postcards are displayed. We are very proud to have contributed to make the Lupus patients days into happier ones. The world is a better place to live thanks to Postcrossers.

Simone from the German Lupus Association has reassured us that Lupus Patients will have access to the butterfly postcards and their nice messages, plus they will make their best to show them throughout their 80 regional groups in Germany. Moreover, and as promised, they will send thank-you postcards to 3 randomly chosen senders of each country that participated, plus to a few hand-picked ones. So, if you have sent a butterfly postcard and wrote your address in it, a postcard might be heading your way soon!

And if you wonder how all the butterflies look together, here are some photos of them:

(click to enlarge)


(click to enlarge)

We are certainly looking forward for similar opportunities to make someone’s day a brighter one, if you have some ideas, please let us know!

Happy LupusCrossing!

Päivää and God dag Postcrossers!

Many of you are already avid fans of Moomins/MuminTroll/Muumi. The Moomins are the major characters in the series of comic strips and books illustrated and written by renowned Finnish artist Tove Jansson, who declared that his characters are partially based on many of her family and friends.

The main appearance of Moomins is very similar to hippopotamuses but they are actually a family of trolls who live in Moominvalley. The Moomins interact with their friends such as Hemulens, Sniff, The Snork maiden, Snufkin and Little My. The major premise of most Moomin stories revolves around the idea of accepting the differences of others and accommodating their specific needs.

The first book was released in 1945 and soon more books, a comic strip series, and a television adaptation followed. There are even a number of movies based on Jansson’s lovable family of trolls. Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Britain, Austria, Germany, and Japan all made TV and movie adaptations of the Moomins.

It was not long after the success of Moomins (called the Moomin Boom) reached its peak as operas, Moomin products, playrooms, museums, albums, and even a Moomin theme park emerged in many parts of Finland and Japan.

If you have any other interesting information about Moomins, just comment and share!