Postcrossing Blog

On the 13&14th earlier this month another large Postcrossing meetup took place, this time in cold Tampere in Finland. The meetup had over 25 Postcrossers with some coming from Germany and The Netherlands.

Here’s what happened described by Soili, one of the attendees:

Some of the guests arrived Tampere on Friday already and they spent some time in a pre-meeting in the night life of the city. The main meeting day was on Saturday. The day was cloudy and streets were slushy but it wasn’t too cold. Some snowflakes came down from the sky every now and then. At 11 am one part of the group went to visit the Tampere cathedral and another part gathered in a postcard shop. I myself arrived Tampere later than the others and the first thing when I got there I went to that shop to check out if they had left any postcards for me. :D Then I phoned them to find out their location. So, we met each other in Moomin Shop downstairs of Tampere library. Those who visited the cathedral were there already, too.

Then we went upstairs to the library cafe and had a cup of coffee and tea. Then we started writing and signing postcards to fellow postcrossers. Previous evening I had prewritten and stamped some postcards already but since I didn’t have any Tampere postcards at home I had to write them at the cafe. It took a while to sign all the 354 postcards. Postcards kept coming endlessly to our table. Luckily, my user name is short enough to write it over and over again. :D After about two and half hours they were all signed. We put postcards to a mailbox next to the Moominvalley to get a special Moomin cancellation to them.

Our Dutch friends gave to the participants delicious gifts they had brought all the way from the Netherlands. Thanks again! Also recycling is in! Anyone could bring unsed postcards they didn’t want to keep anymore to the meeting. So anyone could take as many postcards as they wanted. Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure. I found many beautiful postcards in the trash piles. :D

At this point some of the participants left the group. The rest of us headed for an Italian restaurant Bella Roma. On our way to the restaurant we popped in another postcard shop to buy low-price postcards. I never miss a chance to buy postcards because in the village where I live the postcard assortment is poor and they are also expensive. So, I left the shop with 60 postcards. :D

At least I was hungry when we got to the restaurant. Bella Roma is a cosy Italian ristorante. Pastas and pizzas were delicious as well the desserts like real Italian gelato (ice cream). Yummy! I was stuffed when I finished the dinner.

After 7 pm it was time to say goodbye. Some went home, some for a drink in a bar. After a couple of hours’ driving I was back at home at 10.30 pm. It was a long day but worth it.

It is great to meet other postcrossers in the real life. Some of them I had already met earlier because this was my 8th Postcrossing meeting already. It is wonderful to get to know new people, too. The disadvantage of a meeting this big is that there isn’t necessarily time to talk to everyone but maybe next time.

Luckily enough, Finland’s FI-500000 was sent from this meetup with meeting signatures. Congratulations too all Finnish members for the achievement!

(pooca with the 500,000th card to be sent from Finland.)

Don’t forget to check the forum for updates in the upcoming meetups!

PS: For more photos of this meetup, check here, here, here, here, here and here :).

Sometimes when we are surfing around on the interwebs, we find little pearls that we want to share with you all. Today we want to tell you about the “World’s smallest postal service”!

Anyone can use this to create the tiniest and cutest little letters. Here’s how it works:

“You write a letter (up to 120 words!) and it is transcribed onto tiny stationery (1 × 1.5 inches) with a magical transcription device. It then goes into a tiny envelope which gets addressed, stamped, and sealed with a minuscule wax seal with your initial on it.

The letter then goes into a see-through folded coin case and is packaged up with a magnifying glass in a larger glassine envelope, finished off with a large “World’s Smallest Letter” wax seal. It is put in a sturdy mailer for shipping. I can send your letter directly to a recipient of your choice, or to you if you would like to distribute it yourself.”

The result is completely adorable and the only problem is that we might want to keep it for ourselves instead of giving it someone else! And it can be used for so many things: thank you letters, birthday cards, super cute love letters – they even have a “World’s smallest card from the tooth fairy” one!

This idea was created by Lea Redmond, who explains it like this:

In the summer of 2008, the idea just popped into my head and it was so hilarious that I had no choice but to materialize it. For the first “performance”, I strapped my miniature desk to my back inside my grandmother’s old wicker suitcase, filled the milk crate on my bicycle with tools and supplies, and coasted down to Sweet Adeline Bakeshop in Oakland, CA, nervous as all heck. I was delighted to find that there are lots of people out there that are equally charmed by these little curios.

Impossible not to love it! And if you are San Francisco area, you can actually see it in person and get a handwritten version of it! But if you are not, you can order everything online and she accepts international orders so be sure to check the website for more information about it!

PS: Do you know other postal-related cuteness online? Share it with us!

Not so long ago, we talked about the collaboration between Postcrossing and the Singapore Philatelic Museum. Their “A rat’s tale” exhibit to celebrate the Year of the Rat received many postcards about that theme from Postcrossing members related, which were then displayed as part of the exhibit.

This collaboration was so successful that we repeated the request to all Postcrossers for this years “A Cow and Bull Story” show to celebrate the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Ox. And once again, many were very enthusiastic and contributed with postcards to exhibit.

Mishelle at the Museum sent us some photos to share with everyone:

This exhibit will be on display till August, so if you have the chance to be in Singapore, be sure to pay a visit!

Last month the Brazilian Postcrossers organized a meetup in São Paulo to know each other and share their postcards. We asked Karina to tell us how it all went. Here’s what she said:

The Postcrossing meetup in São Paulo on February the 8th was quite fun. We have setup everything through the Postcrossing forum and the Postcrossing Orkut community and we were all very anxious for the day to come. I already knew a few of the people from the last year meetup, but most people were new members, all very interested in making friends and talking about postcards, swaps and their stories.

We arrived at Villa Lobos park around 10am and we all met at the entrance. We waited for the group to gather together and then we went to find a place in the shade since it was very hot – it’s summer in Brazil.

(More photos here, here)

It was quite funny because we sat in a place close to a group of American football players and at the beginning we were a bit scared with the balls but they soon moved away and we could enjoy each others postcard collections. We sat on the grass and we spent most of the morning commenting on the postcards and telling their stories. Everyone took something for the picnic and everyone shared. I made a cake that didn’t come out that well but nobody complained :).

In the afternoon we had an unexpected rain shower and we had to ran for cover to save the postcards. We stayed there for a while till the rain went away and then we resumed the chitchat and page turning of the postcard albums.

The meetup was lots of fun, I loved meeting all the Postcrossers that participated and I hope we’ll make another meetup soon. It’s great to spend some pleasant hours talking with people who have a common interest.

Participated in this meetup: kazinhabueno, Paula_LC, andreaeiko, vbformig, Fernanda, aleoliva86, felipee, justnunu, falavigna and jp33.

Thank you Karina! We confess, here at the Postcrossing headquarters we are envious of such a great sunny weather! We can’t wait for Spring to arrive.

There are more meetups to come! If you want to meet Postcrossers, exchange stories and postcards, and have an exciting day, here’s a list of the upcoming gatherings you can attend:

13–15th March

Finland, Tampere

20–22th March

Germany, Würzburg

31st May

Portugal, Coimbra

29th August

Finland, Helsinki – International Postcrossing Meetup 2009

Have fun!

Postcrossing headquarters is cheerfully celebrating this incredible milestone of 2 million received postcards! :) Thank you so much for making this possible through your lovely postcards!

Of course you’re all itching to know who were the lucky members that exchanged this special postcard, so here’s the screenshot of the action:

Postcard 2 million travelled from Muffins in Germany, to coveralls1 in Norway!

Congratulations to these 2 members! And despite the many tries nobody guessed the countries. We’ll be organizing another contest soon to give that prize away.