Postcrossing Blog

Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world

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Oh happy day! The new Czech Postcrossing stamp is now out and about, and we’re beyond excited to finally be able to hold it in our hands!

Czech Postcrossing stamp sheet

A small event was held at the beautiful central Post Office in Prague for all the stamps which were launched today, and it gathered an excited crowd of philatelists as well as stamp authors and engravers.

Czech Postcrossing stamp launch

To celebrate the stamp in a more relaxed setting, a Postcrossing meeting is planned for the coming Saturday at Sberatel/Collector’s fair. So, if you’re in the area, do join us there for a chat and some postcard writing! :)

Czech Postcrossing stamp closeup

And if you’re not in the area, keep an eye on your mailbox just in case — your next postcard might feature this lovely new Postcrossing stamp! :)

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Anyone who has ever received a postcard knows they’re tiny windows to far away places, transporting us to different landscapes and realities. Sometimes those places are so enticing they make us wish we lived close enough to pay them a visit! The Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota is one of these places. Have a look:

The Corn Palace 1

No… those are not huge tapestries on the walls… they’re murals made out of corn!

Built in 1921 in the Moorish Revival style, the Corn Palace is an arena where different types of events take place. But the special thing about it is that every single year its facades are decorated by local artists using corn ears, as well as other grains and native grasses. Corn is a major crop in the area – and they’re proud of it!

Postcards from the Corn Palace tell the story of each year’s theme. 1957's theme was “Popular Athletic Games and Attractions in the State”:

The Corn Palace

In 1999, the theme was “Building as a nation”:

The Corn Palace

And in 2009, “American’s destinations” were featured:

The Corn Palace

Between Memorial Day and Labour day each year, a theme is picked and new decorations are stapled and nailed to the walls, and you can follow the corn-structions on their Corn Cam. :) The theme for 2015 is “South Dakota’s 125th”, so if you’re in the area, go check it out – and maybe grab a postcard for the rest of us!

A big thank you to Brenda (aka 9teen87), who owns a huge postcard collection, and brought these great postcards to our attention. You can see these and other interesting postcard topics on her blog.

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Remember the Armenian Street Festival we mentioned here on the blog, back in June? It took place last weekend in Bucharest, and it was a great success!

Many of you responded to our call for postcards, and the organisers were flooded with your kind messages and support. George (aka Nazareanu) sent us some photos of the postcard display they built:

Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition Armenian Street Festival - Postcrossing exhibition

George tells us the people in attendance were quite impressed, and so are we! It warms up our hearts to see people getting up and close with the postcards, taking the time to read them. If you’re curious, you can see many more photos of this colourful event on their Facebook page… from concerts to calligraphy workshops, seems like a good time was had by all! :)

thankspxromania

The participants took the photo above to say thank you to everyone, and sent us the following message:

Every card received is amazing and the messages are unique and very emotional for us. We appreciate your gestures very much and this way, we want to thank all the Postcrossing community and the wonderful people around the world who wrote us!

Well done to the organisers of the Armenian Street Festival — and a big thank you to every postcrosser who sent a card to the festival!

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We promised to show you some highlights from our birthday party map entries, but picking just a few turned out to be a monumental task, leading to long stretches of ooooh’ing and aaaah’ing in the middle of hours of browsing. We loved so many of them, you guys really went out of your way!

Below are some that have drawn our attention. You can click on each image to be taken to the respective entry on the map.

A lot of meetups took place around the birthday, like these ones in Indonesia and France:

DewiRd NatachaBE

And a lot of cooking and baking as well! Our mouths watered with all the commemorative cakes, cookies and sandwiches…

uncoiled tiger Levirin Zih Yu Ma terridc

Schools doing Postcrossing will always have a special place in our hearts, so we enjoyed browsing all the class photos and videos!

EmpressMentewab Cholas kometa class

Some of you decided to use your crafty skills to create Postcrossing-themed objects and displays… such talent and imagination!

Darinka Smoky1972 bungaalangalang santiftp KarinOswald

Many of you also included your little ones in the celebrations…

maloca Flowers05 TinaZW Rapha2002

… or your pets…

Ulrika Maj heli89 Boroka lucyseven

… or even the mail carrier! :)

Franzi13

Such heartfelt displays of love and affection really touched us… We hope we will all still be around in 10 years time, sending postcards and showering each others mailboxes with love!

vilzu2

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Postcrossing’s birthday month may now be over, but what a great month it was!

With almost 2000 entries, the birthday party map got pins in all continents (apart from Antarctica)! Sometimes though, even better than the photos and videos are the attached comments… everyone shared a kind word or experience, and we cherish each and every single one of them.

Postcrossing's 10th birthday final map

The submissions were closed yesterday, but you will still be able to browse the many lovely photos and videos from around the world in the coming months. At midnight UTC, these were the 10 entries with more votes*, which will receive some nice postcard sets, scratch maps and MOO postcards:

linabella 10bday
“Happy Birthday, Postcrossing, and to the next ten years!”

Linabella (from Germany)

Shchuchka 10bday
“Happy birthday, postcrossing! We’ve known you for only three years, but you gave me the whole world! I communicate with people from different corners of the earth and it’s very interesting! I receive postcards from different points of the planet, I expanded my horizons and knowledge of the basics of the English language, I found a lot of friends – and it’s all thanks to you! If it were not for you my life would be boring, filled with gray weekdays…
I wish you prosperity and long life, my favorite postcrossing!
Happy birthday!”

Shchuchka (from Belarus)

hankadl 10bday
“Happy 10th birthday Postcrossing! Here I made a cake with 10 postcrossing-coloured candles to celebrate ^^ I cut my finger and burned my thumb in the process but it was totally worth it. Postcrossing is an amazing project and a great part of who I am, so thank you and I’m looking forward for the next 10 years!”

hankadl (from Czech Republic)

jean mimi 10bday
“Happy birthday POSTCROSSING !
10 more years… and we’ll see what to wish ;-)
A really nice way to discover people and countries, thank you for all these meetings !
BON ANNIVERSAIRE !!!!”

jean-mimi (from France)

connz 10bday
“Tadaaaa… Happy Anniversaryyyyyy. I’m so excited making my wall of fame from the very phenomenal cards of the year. LOL. Wishing for the great more years coming in the future and a lot of nice postcards. Cheers and spread smiles through postcards. Yeayyyyyy ^_^”

connz (from Indonesia)

ming zhe0423 10bday
Happy Birthday Postcrossing :)
We are from UTAR Postcrossing, Malaysia :)"

ming_zhe0423 (from Malaysia)

Postcrossing, you are the best! Happy birthday!"

Ereona (from Russia)

“Happy 10th Birthday wishes Postcrossing from us all here at Kereru Children’s Learning Centre in New Zealand.
We love getting cards in our mailbox and have made Continent boxes to store them all. :) We love learning all about the world around us and every day we 'read’ our cards. Thank you :) What a great learning experience you have given us. we can’t wait to see many more cards in the next 10 years!
One of our biggest joys is to choose which postcard to send to everyone. Once we learn what they would like, all the cards are put on the table and we select the perfect card to send. We hope you all enjoy our choices we have made. :)”

Kereru (from New Zealand)

dwicahyaningtyas 10bday
“Happy birthday Postcrossing and all of the postcrosser around the world.”

dwicahyaningtyas (from Indonesia)

Ejderha 10bday
“♪Happy \(^o^)/ ┌ii​ii┐ \(^o^)/ ​Birthday♪
Thank you for sharing 10 years of postcards, surprises, creativity, smiles and friendships with the world.
I hope to enjoy Postcrossing for many years to come!
Hartelijk Gefeliciteerd, allemaal!
Happy Birthday, everybody!
Big hug from Barbara”

Ejderha (from Netherlands)

So much talent, so many smiles!! A big thank you to everyone who posted, favorited and shared, for making this party such a big success. Our gratitude to MOO as well, for sponsoring this giveaway with their lovely postcards.

We had so much fun going through all your entries that we’re planning to highlight more of them throughout next week… stay tuned!

* Naturally, we won’t count our own entries! :)