Sunday Stamps: E is for Envelope, Erwtjes and Embrace the Earth

Past Sunday's Sunday Stamps theme is/was the letter 'E'. As I was elsewhere, my contribution has a littlE dElay. But here they are:


Envelopes have been pictured on the 2008 Europa stamps (in the year two-thousand-Eight :-) )
For example on this Dutch Europa stamp:



And on the Russian Europa 2008 stamp a modern and classic version of an envelope:



Envelopes behind a modern communication medium (facilitating E-mail!) on the Europa stamp from Azerbeidjan:





Erwtjes, I think a funny Dutch word. It means 'tiny peas' (erwten is the normal plural form of the singular 'erwt'), and I was happily surprised when I saw erwtjes being honoured with a stamp from France:




The erwtjes came on a chaincard themed 'green'. And when thinking of 'green' I think of the Environment, and the need to protect it. So I also was happy to see this stamp on the card. Issued by Turkish Post, a beautiful symbolic way to show the importance of protecting the environment, to embrace the Earth.





See what other 'E' other stamp lovers had in mind on this Sunday at Violet's See it on a Postcard and follow the links in the comments.

Sunday Stamps: 'M' is for milieuvriendelijk and molen

For Sunday Stamps' letter 'M' I chose a long word, however, in English it is even longer. An important subject, to my opinion: milieuvriendelijk.
In English: enviromentally friendly (milieu = environment, friendly = vriendelijk).

While on one hand we, humans, are polluting our world by consumption, traveling, etcetera, on the other hand fortunately more and more people are aware of the fact that we should take care of our earth. To stop polluting, to recycle waste, to consume less and to not use up the earth's resources.
There still is a long way to go. And on this long way there are some bright spots. For instance the fact that several postal services from all-over the world have issued stamps to spread the awareness.

This chaincard arrived home with stamps from six countries! South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Australia and the Netherlands:



In Europe many environmentally friendly stamps have been issued last year, for the theme of the 2016 Europe Stamps was 'Think Green'. I've posted some of these here in April. And I was happy to receive some more since then, like this Europe 2016 stamp from Slovakia:



And these, from Belarus, Ukraine and Estonia (and you can see the other - of two - Dutch Think Green stamp),



The Irish 'Minecraft'-like stamp still fascinates me:



This stamp from Serbia is one of my favourite 'milieuvriendelijke' stamps. Alas I had it in hands just for one day, because I had to forward it to someone else, and the sender from Serbia didn't have any more of these. Fortunately I could scan it and show it to you:




On many of the Europe 2016 'Think Green' stamps you see a wind turbine. In Dutch we name them 'windmolen' (plural 'windmolens'), or windturbine. The older type of windmills we name 'windmolen', too, although most of the time the simple name 'molen' is used for them.

The Netherlands are well-known for its molens. But of course you know that molens can be find anywhere in the world, like these pretty stamps are proofing. I received them from John from the United Kingdom:



The one on the stamp on the left we tend to name 'watermolen' instead of simply 'molen'. But the front side of the card shows a lot more molens:




See what other stamp lovers have chosen for this Sunday's theme 'M', at and via Sunday Stamps!

Sunday Stamps: Green

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Green'.

The first stamp I'd like to share with you I don't own myself. Thanks to the internet I found an image and I am happy to show it today, because it is such a matching stamp!
Today not only is a 'green' themed Sunday Stamps day, but today also is the start of the Persian New Year: Now ruz or Norooz.
For this celebration, people arrange 'haft seen', a tabletop with 7 items which start with the letter 's'. One of the items is Sabzi, which literally means both 'green' and 'vegetable'.
This stamp shows Sabzi: the green sprouts of, for example, wheat or lentils, bound together by a red ribbon.



(I think the tulip is optional, I have never seen it in real/on pictures so far.)

For anyone who is celebrating this New Year: Happy Norooz!


I happened to have joined a chaincard project themed 'green' via Instagram recently.
The postcard started its journey in the Netherlands and after a short stop in Taiwan (ROC), Japan and Italy it returned with these stamps containing the colour green:



Austria issued this stamp for the 20th anniversary of the Alps Adriatic Philately:



Much green you can see in this stamp - one of my favourites - from Japan:



'Green' of course also has to do with environment friendly issues.

These environment friendly themed stamps are from Spain:



The following five are from a 'green' ('groen', environment friendly) ten stamp sheet from the Netherlands:



'Het nieuwe werken, groene winst' means 'the new way of working, green (environmental) profit'. The laptop represents working-at-home, in order to decrease car use and traffic.

Some of the other stamps, of which the one top right says 'groene post, een goed bericht', which mean 'green mail, a good (positive) message':



More about this stamp serie (in Dutch, but I think the non-Dutch speakers will enjoy the pictures, too) on this site and about the design process by Gesina Roters on this site.
Other 'Green' stamps (among them the 'denk groen', 'think green', stamp sheet you can find on this site.

See more stamps on the theme 'Green' on the Sunday Stamps blog and the links under the blog post.

In: from Spain (and Taiwan)

Wind and water...
I love wind turbines, as they provide us with clean energy.
Eva was so generous to send me this wonderful photo, which has been made for her by Chi from Taiwan.

The wind turbines came in a great suitable envelope, with a stamp showing clean water.



Thank you very much, Eva! And via you, thanks a lot to Chi!

Out: to the Netherlands

Voor een jarige vriendin. Met op de envelop een van deze 'groene' postzegels.

(Belated) birthday-card to a friend. On the envelope one of these 'green' stamps.

In: from Spain

Kijk ze eens mooi bij elkaar, de Uil en de Papegaaiduiker - 'samen met u onder de paraplu' - op deze ansichtkaart. Oorspronkelijk een boekomslag uit 1966, geïllustreerd door Jill McDonald voor Puffin Books. Meer werk van Jill McDonals (1927-1982) vind je hier.
Hartelijk dank, Eva!

Look them standing together cosy, the Owl and the Puffin - 'together with you under the umbrella' - on this postcard! Originally a book cover, made in 1966 by Jill McDonald for Puffin Books.
More work by Jill McDonald (1927-1982) you can find here.
Thank you very much, Eva!