Tag: postcards

Saturday Snapshot – Trees

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Last month I posted a picture of some of my heart postcards and asked which your favorite was (the heart-shaped tree beat the coffee beans by 1) so this month I thought I’d show you some of my tree postcards and see if you can choose a favorite.  Interestingly enough, when I put these together and told a little about each sender I discovered that 7 of these 8 came from Germany.  Germany must be a heaven for tree lovers!

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So which one catches your eye?

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

Saturday Snapshot- Postcrossing

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IMG_5090I’ve done a couple of posts on Postcrossing and my love of sending and receiving postcards from around the world.  I’ve received 133 cards from around the world in the 14 months since I started and I decided that I needed a place to keep them all organized by a few different categories so I started another blog Postcarder.  At this point I’m just showing the front, the stamp, and listing whether they told me their favorite book or movie.  It’s bare bones, but I wanted something basic before I received too many cards to deal with.  You can look by country or a few of the categories that I’ve found with the cards.  Maybe I’ll occasionally do a favorites or stats post over there, but I’m not taking the time now.

I would love to receive a postcard from you with a favorite book or movie that I can add to my collection.  You’ll show up on my other blog 🙂  If you need my address just leave a comment and I’ll send it to you and I’ll return the favor 🙂

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

Book and movie favorites via postcards

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I’ve written a few posts about my little hobby with Postcrossing (details here and here if you want them) and I thought I’d give you an update. Since I started in November last year I’ve sent 79 postcards around the world (367,700 miles) and received 70 (332,568 miles). In the spring I added a request to my profile for the people sending me cards, asking them to add their favorite book or movie and, to date, 29 have added one or more favorites. I love receiving the postcards in the mail, but it’s extra fun when they share books and movies with me too! Here are the 29 that sent me titles

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I thought some of you might like to see some of the results by country.  The movie Cloud Atlas made the list twice (and the book once), and Stephen King and Haruki Murakami both show up twice. Danielle from the Netherlands hopes to be a writer someday and Nic from Great Britain is a children’s picture book editor.

The list (some countries have more than one contributor)

Australia
movie-Last Holiday

Belarus
book-Flowers for Algeron by Daniel Keyes
movie-1:1

China
book-author Haruki Murakami
movie-Titanic

Czech Republic
book-author Jenny Nowak, Fevre Dream by George RR Martin
movie-Cloud Atlas, The Host, My Sister’s Keeper, Woman in Black

Finland
book-Cider House Rules by John Irving, Looking for Alaska by John Green
movie-Dear John

Germany
book-Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Great Britain
book-Tess of d’Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy, His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Hong Kong
movie-Toy Story 3

Japan
book-Alive by Piers Paul Read

Ireland
movie-Finding Nemo

Lithuania
book-author Haruki Murakami
movie-director Tim Burton

Netherlands
book-The Shining by Stephen King, The Shack by William Paul Young, Beyond Sleep by Willem Frederik Hermans

Poland
book-Under the Dome by Stephen King

Portugal
book-The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maughan

Russia
book-Glue by Irovine Welsh
movie-The Devil Wears Prada, Cloud Atlas

Sweden
book-Harry Potter
movie-The Hunger Games

Taiwan

movie-Life of Pi

Turkey

book-The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

Ukraine
book-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, 50 Shades trilogy by EL James, author Jules Verne

USA
book-CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Life of Pi by Yann Martel
movie-Marathon Man, My Family & Other Animals, Sweet November, The Wizard of Oz, The Producers, Dr. Strangelove, Sound of Music, Fried Green Tomatoes, actor Tom Hanks, actress Meryl Streep, Pixar movies

If you are interested in sending and receiving postcards, visit www.postcrossing.com. It’s free!

P is for Postcrossing

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Blogging from A-Z

I almost titled this post Puke, but decided that not too many people would want to read it.  I was hit by the Puke bug early Wednesday morning and today have been out of bed for maybe 4 hours.  I am feeling better though 🙂

A few months ago I wrote a post about postcrossing.com (here), At the time I’d received 5 postcards from around the world – now I’ve received 24. Here’s the breakdown

  • Postcards by country

  • Country Received Avg travel (Received)
    1 Belarus 2 14 days
    2 China 1 42 days
    3 Czech Republic 1 35 days
    4 Finland 1 15 days
    5 Germany 3 8 days
    6 Israel 1 19 days
    7 Netherlands 2 11 days
    8 New Zealand 1 19 days
    9 Poland 1 79 days
    10 Russia 3 21 days
    11 Spain 1 25 days
    12 Taiwan 2 20 days
    13 U.S.A. 3 5 days
    14 Ukraine 1 22 days
    15 United Kingdom 1 10 days

And here are a few of the fun cards I’ve received. I received bookish ones002 Ones for the holidays007and ones that make me smarter008(sent to me by an ER doctor in Israel).

Here are some fairly standard messages009I never know where that next postcard in my mailbox is coming from and that’s a big part of the fun.

I’d write more, but I think it’s time I head back to bed.

A world of Postcrossing

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When Meg (Write Meg) wrote about her love affair with Postcrossing I was intrigued by the thought of exchanging mail with people from around the world.  When I checked out the website, Postcrossing.com, it seemed so easy to get started, so in November I signed up and immediately sent out four postcards, to China, Germany, Brazil, and Russia.  Then I waited.  It takes a while for all that travel! Once the person receives your card they register the ID number and then you receive a card from someone else.  So I waited some more.  And then I got my first postcard!!  From Alabama 😦  Okay, okay, the frowny face seems wrong, but I was disappointed.  So, I sent out two more postcards, both to Germany.  The week before Christmas, on the same day, I received two postcards, one from Taiwan and one from England.  Now that’s more like it 🙂  Then came one from Germany and this week I retrieved a beautiful postcard from Spain from the mailbox.  Of the six I’ve sent, two are still travelling, but the other four combined to travel over 34,000 km!   Of the 5 I’ve received so far, only the one from Taiwan wanted to become pen pals, the others it was more of a one time thing, which is okay for me these days.  All in all those 5 postcards travelled over 34,000 km to get here.

I took December off but plan for more postcard fun in 2013.  I recommend it for those who love to write and received letters (because c’mon, who has time for that these days?!) and for those curious about meeting people from around the world.

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As you can see, the postcards are fun and they made me realize that I really need to work on my handwriting!  My favorite photo is the one from Spain and the note I liked best was from the UK but the writer is from the Czech Republic and she wrote about her Christmas traditions there.

Meg has now sent over 500 postcards!  Thanks to her inspiration I may get there someday too.  If you’re interested I highly recommend checking out the site.  It’s easy to start and use and a cheap way to travel 🙂