Bear in Love

I love so much those postcards that I draw my version of the bear in love and sent it to Keith (the USA)... 

Kinder

Heleen (the Netherlands) sent this letter with stamps from one of my favourite series ever. I like the clever-clever-clever design of the stamps, and the message they convey: 

There are things you don’t learn from a book which may in fact be more important than learning your tables. This insight by Christian Borstlap was the inspiration for a design series of stamps in collaboration with “TNT’s Children’s Stamp”; a Dutch charity promoting the education of vulnerable children. Alongside the playfully illustrated tips, his lessons on life were listed along the margins of the sheets of stamps. The concept was brought to life in a book of postcards and an internationally awarded short animation. Result: a € 9.5 million benefit.

You have here more information about this issue (with an interesting short video).

Inside, three postcards from the same series of kinderpostzegels:

Beer is op Vlinder ('Bear is in love with Butterfly')
Annemarie van Haeringen

Kleine ezel ('Little Donkey')
Annemarie van Haeringen

Helden op sokken ('Heroes on socks')
Marit Törnqvist

HitM | First from Germany

The first houses for the project Houses in the Mail have already arrived. They are pretty nice and full of red flowers...

This is a traditional house in Bavaria. I think it is a museum nowadays.

Postcard sent by Simone (Germany).

A half-timbered house near Ratingen. It was renovated few years ago and they found a scallop that showed that it has been a hostel for pilgrims. Now a family with three kids live there.
Postcard sent by Tanjia (Germany).

It Is Cold Outside...

A view of the skyline of Chicago from a frozen Lake Michigan, sent by Bryon (the USA).

Peter, from the book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983) on these USPS stamps, is not afraid of cold and snow...

Sent by Phillip (the USA).

Sunday Stamps | Z(odiac)

We have reached the Z in Sunday Stamps-II (although not me, because I didn't covered every letter of the alphabet...). 

I have chosen (Western) Zodiac for today. It is not a favourite topic, but I should recognise that it produces some beautiful stamps...

From Hungary, a stamp issued on 3 January 2005 as a set of, obviously, 12 stamps. You can see here the complete set.

And, from Taiwan, three stamps issued on 2001. They were released on groups of three stamps along the year, under the name Signs of the Western Zodiac.

Clothelines

Overijssel

Het Kolkje en de Oudezijds Achterburgwal in Amsterdam,
photograph by George Hendrik Breitner, c. 1890-1900 (!!).

Savon de Marcel, by Amandine Piu

All these postcards have been sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

I added them to Maria's Postcard for the Weekend. There is no theme this week.

On the Wall of a School

The walls of schools in Morocco are always very colourful. I spotted this mail slot next to the main door of a school in Rabat. The word الرسائل means, you guessed, letters.

Dreams of a City

Dreams of a City is a project by artist Jenny Lam:

From Fall 2008 through Spring 2009, within my last year living in New York City, I obsessively created hundreds of pre-stamped, self-addressed postcards, omitting my name. Written on each postcard was the prompt, “Tell me one thing you dream of doing before you die. Use this card as your canvas,” as well as a code on the bottom corner. I then left these postcards in public spaces all over Manhattan, using the codes to record where I placed each one. When the postcards returned to me, I was able to tell where each had been found, and, gradually, I pieced together a map of the city from all these people’s dreams.

You can see all the postcards she received here. Now she is redoing the project (much more bigger!) in Chicago, and sharing the postcards here.

Beautiful

Two days ago, a friend sent me a message saying that my latest is one of the most beautiful letters that have never been sent to him.

Made my day.

Another Sun

My second sun sent to Philippe (France). See here the first contribution to his mail art call.

Montana

According to the Wikipedia:"The name Montana comes from the Spanish word montaña and the Latin word montana, meaning 'mountain', or more broadly, 'mountainous country'."
(There is a curious story behind the name of this US state.)

So I thought that I could add this post to Maria's link Postcards for the Weekend, this week's theme being Mountains. All these postcards were sent by Bryon (the USA).

At 630 miles wide and 255 miles high, Montana is HUGE! Montana is the 4th largest state (147,040 sq. mi.). Montana is the 44th least populated state (1,042,000). In Montana there are only 7 people per square mile! (48th). Enough said.

Montana State University occupies a verdant area in full view of the Bridger Range -and the "M"- on the southern edge of Bozeman, where farm and ranch land begin. Home of the "Bobcats", MSU offers various degree programs, with an emphasis on agriculture, architecture and engineering.

The University of Montana, established in 1893, continues providing excellent academic opportunities for students. Center of the campus is the Oval, with Main Hall on one end and the iconic Bronze Grizzly Statue on the other. Jeanette Rankin Hall, the Liberal Arts building, the Payne Family Native American Center, Davidson Honors College - all immediately surround the Oval while Mansfield Library, Forestry Building and Schreiber Gymnasium are close by. The motto, Lux et Veritas, Light and Truth, is an inspirational direction for the higher learning opportunities of this beautiful campus.

The cow-tipping state?!?

Montana Stress Management

Made of Magazine Pages

Envelopes and a postcard made of magazine pages, sent to France, the UK, Canada and Spain. 

Just Wow

One can spend the whole day looking at this envelope sent by Fabienne (France)...

Do Not Disturb

That happens more and more: you are on a trip and there isn't any postcard available. 

But, like Bryon did in Nashville (the USA)... you can always find a  creative solution. Even without leaving the hotel!

Sunday Stamps | X

On 17 July 2014, Royal Mail launched a set of stamps to mark the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, featuring the sports of swimming, track cycling, squash, judo, netball and marathon. And also, in a corner, the Scottish flag, also known as St Andrew's Cross or the Saltire.

I have got three stamps of that set. The little X gives me a reason to add them to the Sunday Stamps - II, for the letter X that "can be anywhere in the stamp or theme word".

Then I thought in another X or cross: the Red Cross (Which, by the way, is the Red Crescent in the country I live in). 

Stamp issued in 1948, dedicated to Clara Barton (1821-1912), the founder of the American Red Cross.

Dutch stamp from 1983, dedicated also to Het Rode Kruis.