Send Me Your Mirrors

Sent to Eutrapèlia (PC).

Send me your mirrors!, by Eutrapèlia, is not exactly a mail project. She started to collect mirrors in the form of literature (in all languages) because an academic paper. She has amassed quite a collection already! In fact, she has published literary quotations and poems by a lot of different authors, but also pictures, paintings, songs, films... and, of course, postcards about mirrors.

I've sent some postcards like this, this, this, etc.

And she is still waiting for your mirrors!
Please, send your mirrors to: sendmeyourmirrors AT gmail DOT com

Old & New Together

Sent by Laura (Spain).

Postcard showing the Casa del Cordón, a 15th century palace recently restored in the city of Burgos (north of Spain). You can see in the postcard the before and the after. I like this idea, as I like postcards showing the inside and the outside of a building, or the same place in daylight and at night, or the same picture big and small...

Moroccan Cheese

Sent to Heleen (the Netherlands).

Three postcards made from two cheese boxes and one label. I made these postcards to complete this sending. I found these boxes funnier because "La Hollandaise/الهولندية" means 'the Dutch woman'. So the receiver!

I also found a round stamp. I love different shaped stamps, and specially the round ones:

Also published here.

Altstadt

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Altstadt, by Sigrid Reiss. It seems a photo, but it is an amazing painting.
Sometimes I feel like sharing just a beautiful postcard, a beautiful image I found in my mail box. I love snails. Besides this, they fits in with this moment of my life when managing things take a lot of time.

Also published here.

Huis or Thuis

Sent by Heleen (The Netherlands).

It says: "A 'home'is made by the one who lives there, not by the one who designs it". It is a difference between the Dutch word huis ('house') and the word thuis ('home'). I just love the postcard. It is the right time to remind me this saying: when we are trying to turn this house into a home!

Returned

 

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Also published here. 

This letter spent a lot of time to reach my mail box. It was not a surprise: mail works differently in Morocco, you know. But maybe there is an extra reason. The sender tell us in her blog: "(...) to my surprise the Dutch post first had watched on the (stamp-free!) back side of the envelope and delivered it initially... to me!.. I put it in the letterbox again, and hope it now is on its way to you!". For that reason she added the arrows, I suppose.

Finally it arrived with an amazing picture of La Vieille Lighthouse inside. It is not an unknown shore. I have seen this famous lighthouse in many pictures. And... I have also seen the real one (from the coast). It was during a trip in Brittany (France) in 2003. It was a very nice trip from lighthouse to lighthouse...

Heleen also added some Australian used stamps with different lighthouses: Cape Naturaliste, Troubridge Island and Wollongong Head.

And the artistamp is about a novel by the Spanish writer Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

NB I adore the fact that I can include five countries in the same post: the Netherlands, Morocco, France, Spain and Australia!

Wonka Sweets

Sent by Eutrapèlia (PC).

Handmade postcard made of a box of Everlasting Gobstopper bought in the USA.

This kind of sweets, sold by The Willy Wonka Candy Company, are named after the Roald Dahl's children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In Dahl's story, Everlasting Gobstoppers are purported to last forever. 

Have you ever tasted them? Do they really last forever?!?

Lego Postman

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Have you guessed what it contained?

Yes: a little mail carrier because I missed my former one! :D

Also published in her blog nog meer post! The funny thing is that I saw this post before receiving the letter, and I thought she was sending me a picture of the Lego postman... not a real (I mean, 3D) postman!

I Love NY

Sent by Chi (Taiwan).

Postcard bought in the MoMA of NY (the USA). The title of this work by Experimental Jetset is I Love Stamps / Stamps Love Me / I Love Postcards (1998-99).

The sender wrote that this postcard is 100% NY style.

I love postcards, and I adore metapostcards!

Coffee & Creativity

Sent to Heleen (the Netherlands).

Altered postcard (see the original below). It's an ad postcard for art workshops in Estudio Rossana Zaera. I love these postcards!! They are perfect to be altered (see here and here).
Also published here.

I also used masking tape in the envelope:

The original:

Mail a Whale

Sent by Postmuse (the USA).

It is a thank you card for one of my contributions to her amazing project: Orphaned Postcard Project. I found the postcard really funny. And the postcard is very useful. I mean if you intend to send a whale. But I must add that I once I sent a whale trough mail successfully.

The back:

How Much It Cost

For mail lovers, sometimes the price of the stamps is a handicap. At least for me: I would send EVEN more snail mail if I were rich :)

When I receive mail, I am curious about the price of stamps in different countries. For instance, I have got two postcards from Russia the same day, and both have travelled exactly 38 days (Postcrossing system said). I mean they where sent more or less the same day, so the price must be also the same, mustn't it? But it seems that each sender paid a different quantity of rubles, doesn't it?

LoveLetters

Could a machine write love letters better than people? Dr David Link carried out the successful project LoveLetters to show that it is possible.

The Ferranti Mark 1 was the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer, built in 1951. Dr Link's art installation is a replica which executes the original recovered software by Prof Christoper Strachey, a philosopher and pioneer in programming. Visitors can interact with a functional replica of this old computer containing many of its original components, and gain an authentic impression of the look-and-feel of the old computer. The project has won the first annual Tony Sale Award.

The original Ferranti Mark 1 or Manchester University Computer

The old computer was able to do unimaginable tasks 60 years ago. Now it writes algorithm-generated love letters. These would be addressed to "Darling Love", "Honey Love", "Jewel Duck" or whatever, and signed M. U. C. (which stands for Manchester University Computer). For instance:

  

DEAR DUCK

MY KEEN CHARM SIGHS FOR YOUR FERVENT ENTHUSIASM. YOU ARE MY FOND HUNGER.: MY LOVESICK HEART.YOU ARE MY DEAR FERVOUR.: MY FOND WISH.

YOURS AFFECTIONATELY

MUC

Or 

HONEY MOPPET

MY FERVOUR ANXIOUSLY ADORES YOUR LONGING. MY THIRST PASSIONATELY CHERISHES YOUR LOVESICK YEARNING. MY CHARM DEVOTEDLY PANTS FOR YOUR TENDERNESS. YOU ARE MY PRECIOUS THIRST. MY FERVOUR PANTS FOR YOUR ADORATION.

YOURS LOVINGLY

MUC

(You can read the letters here).

The original purpose of this machine was mathematical calculations. I wonder why Dr Link brought it back to life in order to write such old-fashioned love letters. Maybe only old machines can write love letters?

Collage with Snails

Sent by Kerry (Canada).

Collage.

Murex Shell

Sent by King (Philippines).

It was a postcard received trough Postcrossing. The postcard showed an amazing view ofthe capital of her country at nigth. And I love specially the stamps. I wonder if she knew that snails are among my favourites themes, or she chose these stamps by chance...