It’s no secret we’re big fans of the behind-the-scenes part of postal delivery (see here, here or here). Russell (aka SonOfBilly) from New Zealand, spotted this love of ours and sent us this video by New Zealand Post:
That put a huge smile on our faces! Samson’s enthusiasm is contagious, and pretty much a mirror of our own delight when we see these videos. Keep them coming! 😊
To say I’m a big fan of stationery would be the understatement of the year. Things like labels, washi tape, rubber stamps, or stickers just make me go all starry-eyed, sighing in delight… I treasure (read: hoard) all the bits and pieces that can turn postcards into mini-works of art.
Sadly, living in a small town does present some challenges, like the lack of nice stationery shops in a radius of 200km… which is why I’ve recently fallen in love with subscription services! They’re a godsend for those of us in rural areas, as the goodies come to us, pre-selected and nicely wrapped. Bliss!
Enter Pipsticks, a monthly sticker subscription club, offering an eclectic mix of sourced and self-designed stickers in two flavours: kids or grown-ups.
The kids pack (above) features animals, monsters, robots and funny puns in all their sparkly and puffy glory, while the grown-up pack (below) is a little less exuberant and more versatile, but just as much fun.
I quite like how their selection has a bit of everything: backgrounds, cartoons, labels, a white postcard, and of course both tiny stickers and bigger pieces, all ready to bring a pop of excitement to any postcard or occasion. Some people might prefer to pick and choose what they buy… but I for one, am quite happy to be surprised and not overwhelmed with choice. Also, it’s nice to have a selection of different things available instead of 3–4 sheets of the same designs.
To help you bring your postcards to the next level, Pipsticks is offering one lucky postcrosser a “Studio Sticker box”, which is a box loaded with washi tape, blank postcards and stickers. Sounds amazing, right?! 😍
For a chance to win all these goodies, leave a comment below letting us know one cool thing you’d like to see pictured in stickers more often! (Me? I’d vote for eggs. 🍳 The world needs more egg-citing stickers!)
Don’t forget to check out their website for more details on their fun subscriptions — or you can have a look at their Instagram for a peek of their previous and future packs.
As always, come back this time next week to find out which lucky postcrosser was chosen by Paulo’s random number generator!
And the winner is… terrimik! YAY! Thank you everyone for sharing your favourite sticker ideas — so interesting! :)
Remember the Typographic cards we enthusiastically gushed about last year? Harald is expanding his already fantastic set of 26 cards with a special new one, and launching it with a bang on Kickstarter! He explains it better:
So far, 127 backers from 20 different countries have pitched in, adding 4 extra “sticker-cards” to everyone’s pack… and I’m about to add Portugal to that list!
So join us if you can, and spread the word to your friends in other countries. We hope many people will choose to back the project, so that everyone can receive as many cards as possible! 😀
Hurray! In 2 days, it’ll be World Post Day!
October 9th is the day to celebrate traditional mail, and the important role it plays in connecting all the people of the world… not to mention making sure all our postcards and letters get delivered in all corners of the planet! So we invite you to celebrate this happy day, thank your mail carrier for their work, and send a few extra postcards to friends, family or even strangers!
With your help, we’ve collected a list of celebratory events from postal operators and museums worldwide:
Since this year World Post Day falls on a Sunday, a lot of post offices and museums are celebrating a little earlier… so better check them now! And if you know of any more initiatives we can add to the list, just leave us a comment below.
Have fun, and enjoy World Post Day everyone! 📯
A while ago, we got an email from Chang Chia-Yen (aka Geoian), in Taiwan. He’s a teacher in a secondary school there, and has been using Postcrossing with his classes… with a twist!
For a while, Geoian and his students collected postcard from all over the world, until they received a nice variety of them. Then, they shuffled all the cards together, divided the class into 2 teams and got ready for a mighty game of bingo!
The goal of Geoian’s class bingo is to be the first to make a straight line of 5 items (in this case, postcards), either diagonal, vertical or horizontally across the board, and eventually to complete it. At the start, each team fills up their lattice with postcards they pick, distributed randomly.
Then, conditions are laid out — these are special criteria such as “a multiview card”, “a card from a World Heritage site” or “a card featuring an aurora borealis”. Some are quite specific, while others are broad ranging and might be able to accommodate several different postcards.
They randomly choose the criteria for each turn, list them all on their blackboard, and then the game can start! In each turn, teams choose one postcard that matches the condition at play, and can thus be removed from the board. (Teams can also play some wildcards that change the conditions to better suit their needs… but we won’t go into so much detail). Whoever removes all the postcards from a straight line, makes a bingo!
It seems tricky, and I confess we had a little trouble understanding the concept initially… so the students got together on their own initiative and made a really nice video to show us the game in action! We found it really endearing and were infected by their enthusiasm — so we decided to share it with you all! Here it is:
It’s very nice to see this whole new dimension to exploring postcards — and also to know that the fun doesn’t stop after a card his registered! 😊 A huge thank you to Geoian for coming up with the game, and to all his students who took the time to make this video on own their free time to help us understand their bingo game. They are Angelina and Cathy (the hosts), Jenny and Nini (the videographers), and Linda, Mina, Frank, Duke, Jacob, Gino, Doris and Alex (the players) — thank you guys!
PS – If you’re a teacher or a parent, why not give it a go? Categories can be as convoluted or simple as you’d like, adapting the difficulty level to each children’s skills. Let us know how it goes!
