Sunday Stamps: Spring, Easter

Today's Sunday Stamps theme is 'Easter or Spring'.

To me the two are related: Easter is the celebration of the awakaning of nature after winter and the new life.

In our country crocuses are one of the first clear signs of this wake-up, this new life. Even though they not have been native in the Netherlands until 1560, nowadays bunches of crocuses pop up in the parks and lawns. Well, before crocuses snowdrops are marking the end of winter already, be it that snowdrops are seen less often.

Recently PostNL issued stamp sheets by the Dutch illustrator Janneke Brinkman-Salentijn. On one of the sheets I spotted this yellow crocus:



This stamp I used for my postcard to John in the UK, writing on the back that the yellow crocus is less common than the white and lilac ones. But since I posted the postcard I'm seeing yellow crocuses almost everywhere!

After crocuses, usually narcissus, daffodils, appear. Also these already are appearing in real now.

The Belarus Post issued this fine stamp, showing this typical spring flower:



Besides spring flora, there also is some spring fauna, which (coincidentally?) also is associated with Easter celebrations.
Among them the rabbit, here on stamps from Belarus:



And baby chicks, here a chick with its mom and dad on a beautiful stamp from Indonesia:



Stamps showing lambs I couldn't find so far. Instead I found three easter stamps, received thanks to postcrossing in the past years:

From Poland this Easter Bunny, with all well-known spring/easter items in it:



A more beautiful image, showing this stamp on the first day cover, you can see at Ana's blog post of today.

The following Easter stamp is from Ukraine. The text, 'Христос воскрес' (if I can read it well enough and as far as I can decipher thanks to translate.google), in Dutch would mean 'Vrolijk Paasfeest', 'Happy Easter', however the Ukrainan meaning literally is 'Christ resurrected'.
The fact that the largest image is an egg shaped figure might make the circle round for Easter being not only a Christian celebration but also a celebration of new life from even ancient times.



Eggs are not only used in Easter traditions. Painted eggs are also part of the Persian New Year celebrations, Now Ruz, which started a week ago, exactly at the start of spring.
The following stamp I alas don't own myself, but this picture I found on the internet, showing beautifully painted eggs:



Finally a basket with unpainted eggs, which hopefully will be hatched to have young chicks come out.
Also this stamp is from Poland. Google.translate told me that 'Wilkanoc' means Easter in Polish:



See more Spring and Easter stamps on today's Sunday Stamps blog post and via the links mentioned under that post.

In: from the USA

Exactly in time for this celebration of spring and new life I received this matching postcard.
Happy Easter!
And thank you very much, Shel!

In: from Spain

Some years ago Eva sent me a postcard made out of a colouring pencils package, and a year later she surprised me with a new package 'card', which contained pencils!

Similar to Eva I love colouring materials. I have a lot of colouring pencils and felt pens at home (too much, I'm afraid..). Despite of that I love to visit art supply shops, where I have to force myself not to buy them.
When walking in the street and seeing a usable pencil on the ground I have to pick it up and take it with me.

So also the packages I love to see, and it won't surprise you that I was very happy when I opened my mailbox today to find this beautiful postcard, made out of an Alpino felt tip pens package!

The back of this card is a delight, too. First Eva's message, not only because of what she wrote (about this package, among others) but also she added great little drawings to it. As the message is personal I of course will keep it offline. The stamps are great, too, these paintings by painter Goyo Domínguez:



Thank you very much, moltes gràcies, Eva!

In: from the United Kingdom

This extraordinary house postcard I received from John.
It has been completed circa 1610 and is named 'Little Moreton Hall'. How large this National Trust site is, you can see the beautiful pictures by John, on his blog post of 3rd of March.

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.

Out: to the United Kingdom

This painting by Carl Spitzweg is named 'Der ewiger Hochzeiter' or 'The eternal bridegroom'.

In the back you can see a clock (and I think it a nice and fascinating painting!), that's why I couldn't resist to send this card to John for his clock postcards collection, even though his clock blog is closed now.

On the back I added a stamp which shows a flower who is appearing in real in our country, these days, as a sign of spring: the crocus.

In: from the United Kingdom

I was wondering why John had sent me a postcard showing a boat, until I read the description on the back side. It is a Floating Post Office!
The photo was taken in 1934 at the Liverpool Docks (photographer unknown, alas), and now is in the British Postal Museum & Archive.



And I keep on learning thanks to stamps! The postcard was sent one day before Commonwealth Day, an unknown day to me until now. This year the day happened to be on the same date as in 1983 (I learned thanks to wikipedia).

Thank you very much, John!