Postcrossing Blog

February 24th will go down in (Postcrossing) history as the day the Romanian Postcrossing-themed stamp was launched! George (aka Nazareanu) and Mihnea (aka MihneaR) were there to participate in the events and wrote back to tell us all about it!

The stamp launch day started at the Romfilatelia Headquarters (the National Stamp Issuing Authority) with the stamp concept/identity presentation by Luminita Toncu, who is the head of the department. For this event, postcrossers came from all over Romania: Bucharest, Ploiesti, Suceava, Gura Humorului, Oradea, Zalau, Constanta, Cluj-Napoca, Brasov, and even 3 from outside Romania, from Czech Republic, Italy and USA.

The day continued with a conference of 2 presentations and 5 speeches organised by members of the Romanian Postcrossing Community for the people present in the audience.

The first presentation was about “The Postcrossing Diversity: Connecting people”, presented by George Năzăreanu (Nazareanu), which marked the various stories and emotions transmitted through postcards, the benefits of Postcrossing meetings, recreative & cultural events possible, and the importance of sharing the Postcrossing hobby at local schools & kindergartens for the children’s education by exposing them to “hands on” learning activities. The presentation ended with the message from Paulo Magalhães & Ana Campos for the Romanian Postcrossing Community for this once in a lifetime event.


After the presentation, five speakers took the stand (in order from left to right): Ovidiu Bucse (aka Ovidius), talking about “Postcrossing meetings in the world“, Andra Ardeleanu (aka AndraArd) who examined “The need of stamps diversity”, Eugen Mihai (aka aeumihai2003) discussing “Photography and postcards”, Michelle Ordeltová (aka Michellie) taking about “Building bridges across nations” and Cornel Jipa (aka corneljipa), a member of the Romanian Philatelic Federation since 1976, telling the story of “Romanian philately along time".

The second presentation was “Postcards: hobby & people” by Mihnea Raducu (MihneaR), sharing his experience with postcrossers meetups during his travelling inside and outside Romania.

Making History: The signing of the official special panel, which will be displayed on the “Hall of Fame” Stamp corridor at the Romfilatelia Headquarters.

Otilia and Noar (noarvladimir), the future Postcrossing generation exploring and discovering the visual wonders found on postcards.

Group photo with both the Postcrossing community and the philatelic team that made the stamp possible.

Over the next couple of days, the community gathered to properly celebrate this milestone… and of course signed lots of postcards with the new Postcrossing stamp!

This is a stack of stamped meeting postcards, which got filled up with signatures, Postcard IDs and addresses ready to be sent out within minutes! This is how much we awaited this memorable event. In total, over 1400 postcards were signed and sent over into the world.

At the end of this lovely day, with the heart filled with joy and the mind filled with unique memories, the Romanian Postcrossing Community can only say: Happy Postcrossing everybody!

Thank you Marius Smadu (msmadu) for the nice photos, George (aka Nazareanu) and Mihnea (aka MihneaR) for the report and to everyone who participated — looks like a very nice event! 😊 Hurray!

It’s only February yet, and we’re already reporting the second Postcrossing-themed stamp being issued this year… 2017 is off to a fantastic start!   

So ladies and gentlemen, we’re proud to announce that in just 2 days, Romania will join the ranks of the countries which have issued a Postcrossing stamp. They may have less than 1500 postcrossers there, but their unwavering enthusiasm for the project convinced their post office this was a good idea — and we’re glad for their fierceness! We’re especially thankful to Mihnea (aka MihneaR) whose persistence and commitment to this idea in every step of the way were crucial in bringing this new stamp to life.

Have a look at their new stamp, which will be published on February 24th:

We bet it’ll look pretty cool on all their postcards! 😀

The new stamp sheet (and accompanying FDC) will be available from Friday on Romfilatelia's shops in Bucharest, Bacau, Brasov, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi and Timisoara or online, on the WOPA website.

To celebrate the stamp issue, Romanian postcrossers are organising a couple of meetups in Bucharest this Friday and Saturday, and planning to send lots of postcards with the new stamp. Do join them, if you’re in the area!

And if you’re not in Romania, keep an eye on your mailbox — your next postcards from there might feature their shiny new stamp!

Living in a touristic area can be a bit challenging. While postcards are easy enough to find, they’re usually über-touristy, featuring the beaches and little else. It gets boring after a while… which is why I was delighted to discover Rosa’s postcards on our way back from a trip to the market in Olhão. Turns out, her mom has a little store by the waterfront that showcases local art and products — including Rosa’s gorgeous postcards and art.

We thought it was time we had another post on our stationery makers’ series, and reached out to Rosa and ask her a few questions. Turns out, she’s been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil, and makes more than just postcards! :)

Could you introduce yourself briefly?

I’m Joana Rosa Bragança (but you can call me just Rosa!) and I’m an artist & illustrator based in Olhão, a fishing town in the Algarve region. I love living near the sea! Besides drawing and painting, I also like to spend my time photographing with film cameras, walking in nature, reading, sewing and trying cake recipes. I love mornings, cats, artisanal ice creams, fresh figs and old books.

What inspires you?

I get a lot of inspiration from the people I see, not only the people of my hometown, with their strong characters and looks, but also the foreigners who pass by, who are a lot these days. One of my favorite themes is the beach and bathers, and here I have plenty of “models” to observe! Still, not all my characters are inspired by real people, some of them happen to be really bizarre and come directly from my imagination. I also love to draw all sorts of animals and plants.

Are you a postcard or letter writer yourself?

I used to be, I even had pen friends when I was a teenager… then the internet appeared and made me forget it a little. Nevertheless, I love sending the orders of my online shop inside envelopes full of doodles and postage stamps. Postage stamps are awesome! My favorites are the ones with illustrations or photos of fauna and flora.

If you could define your style in 3 words, what would they be?

Dreamy, joyful, ironic.

And could you show us your workspace, the place where magic happens?

Thank you so much, Rosa! You can check these and other postcards and art on her online shop. And if you know of other stationery makers we should check out, let us know in the comments!

Another year, another chance to participate on the Graceful Envelope Contest!

This year, the theme is “Pushing the envelope”, which is very exciting as it leaves room for all kinds of artistic interpretations. The organizers explain how this motto embraces two concepts at the heart of the contest:

The first meaning dares you to take your creativity beyond your comfort zone. “Push the envelope” and find new ways to use graphic design, hand lettering and postage stamps to enhance your entry. It may be a small canvas, but you are capable of big ideas.

The Graceful Envelope Contest also celebrates the significance of writing, sending and receiving letters. In this era of email, tweets and emojis, seeing a hand-addressed envelope in your mailbox can make any day special. So your entry should “push the envelope” in the sense of promoting the exchange of letters. Depict the joy of letter writing. Or salute an American tradition as old as the U.S. Constitution, which empowered Congress “to establish post offices and post roads."

One of the previous contest’s judges revealed that they’re not simply looking for the best calligraphy or painter… in the end, what really matters is the winning combination of all elements in the envelope (ie, design, calligraphy and stamps) and how they work together to reflect the year’s theme. The contest is open to entries from all around the world (as long as they arrive before March 27th 2017) and there are separate categories for children too, so do encourage your little ones to participate!

You can read the contest rules and how to participate on the Washington Calligraphers Guild website, and check out all of last year’s winners on their Flickr page for some inspiration.

We did it everyone!! 🎉 40 million postcards delivered and registered! 🎉 What a great way to start the week!

Curious to find out which postcard was the lucky one? Here it goes: Postcard number 40,000,000 (TW-2118751) was sent by navi in Taiwan on December 1st, and registered today at 6:39 AM (UTC) by Alexis11 in France! Hurray!

Not surprisingly, all spots on our guessing game were taken long ago, and the lucky winner was BeckyThatcher, whose guess was spot on! Well done, your new set of 40 Cardcetera postcards are on their way.

The other four lucky postcrossers who came the closest to the right time were Anne-Liam, frosch0980, Neraksrekked and klim4uk — great job! You’ll each receive a pack of 20 Cardcetera postcards as well!

Both the sender and the receiver will also receive a surprise pack of 20 postcards from Cardcetera, to celebrate their good luck.

Last but not least, our big heartfelt thank you to our team of volunteers, to Astrid at Cardcetera for generously sponsoring this giveaway with her beautiful cards… and, most of all, to you — all of you who connect the world through postcards!

And now, the countdown to the next million begins — one postcard, and one smile at a time! Happy Postcrossing! :)