incoming post catch-up

I've been a lazy blogger for the last few days, but now it's time to catch up on incoming post!

This beautiful field of flowers (the Fraser Valley in British Columbia) came via the SwapBot 'Just a Postcard to Canada 17' swap. Pretty!



I love mapcards so was particularly pleased when this Colorado one turned up in my mailbox (SwapBot Places/Locations PC swap)!





...and this spectacular one of the Oregon Coast was for the same swap.



And these two wonderful black and white cards were for 'Vintage Image postcard' swap on SwapBot. The one of the little boy is a portrait taken by American photographer Gertrude Kasebier (1852-1934) and the other one is, of course, a very young Marilyn Monroe.

Thanks for your cards, everyone!

Incoming post

There've only been two postal deliveries so far this week as Monday was a public holiday here but yesterday and today my mailbox has been bursting with lovely postcards!




These two are from Cecile in South Africa (a private swap), and show views from the Garden Route area...beautiful!



This PostCrossing card came from Finland and shows some characters from the Moomins! It also had a brilliant Moomin stamp which my camera didn't do justice to; take a look at the whole Moomin stamp series here: http://www.stampnews.com/stamps/stamps_2009/stamp_1239354381_140012.html
Aren't Moomins the best?!





Two more PostCrossing cards now, the first from the Czech Republic and the second from Germany. This nice PostCrosser from the Czech Republic was kind enough to write me out some phrases in Czech too!



Now another private swap, from Vaso in Corfu. Just looking at this makes me want to jump on a plane to Greece right away!

Thanks for all your cards!

In my mailbox...

This beautiful postcard from Australia with a matching stamp came to me via PostCrossing; it shows the Blue Mountains - spectacular!



This one also came via PostCrossing, all the way from Taiwan, and shows Penghu Inter-Island Bridge - the longest inter-island bridge in the Far East. My first ever piece of post from Taiwan, and pretty impressive that it only took 10 days to arrive from the other side of the world!



And my first PostCrossing card from South America was also via PostCrossing - muchas gracias, Ramiro! There are two really great stamps on the envelope this came in; hopefully the detail comes out here. The bottom one is so cute - two people riding a hair-raising rollercoaster!





And look at this wonderful vintage card showing everything typically Dutch - thanks Linda!



And now for an extremely fun delivery! This came from Karen, a SwapBot swap - Random Envie. The idea was to send your swap partner random items that would fit into a size 10 business envelope, and what fantastic things I got here! Karen sent me some wonderful Halloween stickers, cute recipe cards, pressed pennies and a cute notelet - can you see the cheeky pumpkin stamp on the envelope too? Karen was sweet enough to match her envie to my liking for everything Halloween-y! Of course, I forgot to photograph the envelopes I sent out for this swap, but can only hope they'll be as well-received as Karen's!

Winging their way to my swap partners...

As soon as I saw a vintage postcard swap on SwapBot, I had to sign up straight away! Vintage pictures and adverts are my favourite type of postcard (or maybe... well, I have so many favourites, it's hard to say, but they are high up on the list) so I had lots of fun choosing cards for my swap partners. The two I sent show a shopping street in Quebec in 1947 - the old cars and shop fronts were what appealed to me about this, and a picture of George Rodrigue's garage, in the main street of Valcourt, Quebec in about 1935. I'm betting the main street doesn't look much like that now!

Thanks for reading - hope the postman brings you something nice!

Postcards for me!

This week has been pretty good so far post-wise so here I am, to share the joy!



These two were both PostCrossing cards. The one at the top is from Portugal, showing women in the fishing village of Nazaré wearing their traditional outfit of seven skirts (representing seven days of the week). The second one shows the Old Post Office in Hartington, Derbyshire - although sadly, the back of the card tells us, the postbox has been removed since the photo was taken and the Post Office is now a private home. The decline of the Post Office continues...




These are just so great I had to share! Purchased from Etsy store PrairiePeasant‏, these envelopes are made from a reclaimed copy of Raymond Briggs' 'The Snowman'. Hopefully the detail is visible as they are just beautiful - I might just have to hoard them!







Next are two cards from SwapBot postcard swaps, the first one a map and pictures from around Indiana, the second showing Hank Greenberg (1911-1986), who played for the Detroit Tigers and is considered one of the best ever right-handed batters. That told me, as my ignorance of baseball is second to none. The third card is from a private swap, and shows Turin at dusk - thanks Anna!








Today's post brought me this wonderful picture of Lviv, in Ukraine (via PostCrossing). I was pretty excited about this, as it's definitely my first post from Ukraine. The next two are SwapBot swaps, the first showing a lovely view of San Francisco's Golden Gate, and the last one with some highly exotic tree frogs. Definitely my friends in high places!

Thanks for reading - and for all the cards (o:

And what was in my mailbox last week...

Apart from a lovely penpal letter, I also received these two postcards. The Canadian Rockies one is for SwapBot swap 'Just a Postcard to Canada 16' - thanks Linda! The LAX one is a real mystery - no name, no swap name... I'm stumped! My theory is that it's a PostCrossing one but sadly I can't register it.

Catch-up on last week's outgoing post!

Last saw quite a few postal ins and outs but I stupidly forgot to photograph some of them before mailing, which doesn't make interesting blog reading. Silly me. Anyway...



These 5 went out in SwapBot swap 'Quick 5 postcard swap #2'. I particularly liked the Quebec wildlife one - cuteness overload! Although maybe not so cute to bump into some of those guys in a dark street.



This winter wonderland scene went out for SwapBot swap 'Just a Postcard to Canada 17'. It shows the Montmorency Falls near Quebec. That's more snow than I've ever seen in one go!

Now for some private swaps via PostCrossing... going to Greece, South Africa and the Netherlands respectively.

Postcards

At the top is a postcard I sent in a private swap to Anna, in Italy. I really liked the stamp-shaped photos!

The second one is a postcard I received in Swap-Bot swap 'Just a Postcard to Canada 12' a few weeks ago. It shows Pixar's 'A Bug's Life' - cute! Thanks to Taryn for this. The photo hasn't come out that well as my camera doesn't seem to like taking close-ups, and there was no way it was going to do anything remotely blog-worthy with the stamp... what a shame as it was a lovely sparkly one with a jumping deer.

I also sent several PostCrossing postcards off this month but didn't remember to photograph them. Problems with my mailbox mean no incoming post for me at the moment (I'm going to need therapy if this isn't sorted out soon)...

First post: welcome!

Hello and thanks for visiting! I’ve long been addicted to sending and receiving things through the post, and recently came across several sites which made me decide to get more involved in swapping and penpalling - and thanks to the inspiration of various letter-writing/penpal/postal blogs I’m also going to start a blog of what I send and receive: welcome to my postal-related ramblings!

This is my first attempt at blogging so it may take a little while for me to get the hang of how to set things out and make everything look pretty. Any advice from more experienced bloggers would be very gratefully received!

A little about me in case you’d like to read it: I’m a 30-year old Englisher although living in self-imposed exile at the moment (for love!). Being self-employed and working at home for the last 5 years has fuelled my postal obsession as I am usually around when the mail is delivered (distraction from work!)... making me count the seconds till the postie shows up! I also have a liking for postboxes and am trying to collect photos of them wherever I go. If you’d like to send me pictures of postboxes (mailboxes) – or indeed anything mail-related – where you live I’d love to receive them and will publish them here with your permission.

Things I enjoy apart from mail include reading, travelling, languages, old films, walking, history (especially the Victorian age and early 20th century), tarot/the occult, world music… and lots more I can’t think of right now. ‘Cuteness’ also appeals to me and my inner child (lol) encourages me to decorate my letters and postcards with pretty stuff! My collection of stationery, stickers, random pretty stuff and things that might come in handy one day never fails to astound my boyfriend…