Postcards for the Weekend: Winter scenes

This weekend's Connections to the World theme is 'Winter scenes'.
At the moment it is cloudy, here in the Netherlands. Sometimes rainy, and when going outside one could think it to be not only winter, but also autumn or spring. In the start of last December there were some days full of snow, and the weather forecast says it might be snowing next week, or not.
At least there are postcards who show snow. And thanks to 'Postcards for the Weekend' I was triggered to share them with you.

The postcard above I received from Margit from Germany, a cute one of Little Mole, or Krtek, and his woodland friends.



Although I dislike the cold and slipperiness of snow, sleighing is fun. This postcard is an illustration by Fiep Westendorp.

The postcard below I had made out of a photo I took some winters ago, from footsteps of our feathered friends on the pathway next to our home.



And this is a regular postcard, showing a winter scene in the province of Drenthe:



I used it for a chaincard, and after a journey via the USA, Indonesia (without melting!) and Russia the card returned home safely, the backside filled with snowmen:




See more winter scenes at and via Postcards for the Weekend!

Postcards for the Weekend

This weekend the theme of Postcards for the Weekend is 'anything you wish'.

Coincidentally I received two cards from Eva this weekend (well, one on Friday and the other yesterday, Saturday), which is a good reason to post them now!



This postcard shows a flying object and I am not sure if it is a hot air balloon or zeppelin. Eva bought it in Amiens, France, the city where Jules Vernes has lived for many years.
I love the combination of the design of the flying object and the map - and stamps on top and airmail stripes on the right (wondering why most airmail envelopes have red and blue lines/chevrons?).

On the back side Eva added wonderful stamps, among them a clear hot air balloon:



Some other creatures who even knew how to fly long before Jules Verne was thinking about it, appear on this postcard:



The postcard is titled 'Reality', from a book named 'ABC Photography', and the photo itself is titled 'Sustenance 114', made by Neeta Madahar in 2003.

On the back side an other wonderful stamp, showing a rooster and a hen in a stained glass window. They represent the legend of the Miracle of Santo Domingo de la Calzada.



Thank you very much, Eva!


Find more Postcards for this Weekend at this weekend's Connections to the World.

In: from the UN and the US

It is fascinating to see how Finnbadger manages to send mail from... er, as many countries as the United Nations do count!

The stamps show three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the successor of the eight Millenium Goals (which alas haven't been accomplished in 2015).

Inside the envelope, besides a kind message from the sender, a vintage written back of a postcard, and this wonderful mailbox collage by Craftgasm.



Thank you very much, Finnbadger!

Sunday Stamps: Birds

Sunday 2 October it is Sunday Stamps time again!
The theme is 'Birds', and I think our feathered friends always making a nice theme.

I'd like to show you the stamps on my recent 'chaincard', which has been traveling between the Netherlands, Canada, Thailand and Hong Kong (click to enlarge):



On top you can see my card before the sparrow flew out. And below you can see the influence of a journey over three continents. Apart from some postmark ink, the sparrow arrived rather well!



One of the other chaincard fellows will receive these stamps (I love the puffin and crow stamp!),



See more Birds stamps on and via Sunday Stamps.

In: from Korea

Two beautiful bird collage cards by Kareem Rizk, sent to me from Korea by Kim JungYoun.



Beautiful stamps as well, and it is the first time that I see a smartphone on a stamp!



Thank you very much, Kim!

In: from the USA

This postcard from FinnBadger is very special. Not only because of the beautiful design, by Charley Harper, showing a Loon (Diver; 'Duiker' in Dutch), one of my favourite water birds, but also by the postage stamp: it is the new round US stamp and it is the first time for me to see it in real; I love the moon!

FinnBadger chose a perfect combination: the stamp and the picture both show the moon (and the title of Harper's illustration is 'Clair de Loon' which of course reminds us of Debussy's beautiful song).

And third, last but not least: did you notice the postmarks?



Yes, the stamp has been cancelled twice, and even the Harper faux postage got a cancellation mark, on a very special date: leap day!
It doesn't happen often that February counts 29 days, and mail rarely is postmarked this date.
Thank you very much, FinnBadger!

By the way, some more '29 February' postmarks you can find in this IUOMA group.

In: from the Falkland Islands

I love birds as you might know, so I was very happy that Alvin sent me this card from his holidays place, accompanied by such a wonderful and matching stamp!

The back side of the card says which kind of penguin you can see:
Rockhopper, Gentoo penguin, Snares Crested (rare on the Falklands);
King penguin chick, Magellanic penguin, King penguin;
Macaroni penguin, King penguin, Magellanic penguin chick;
Gentoo penguin, Rockhopper, Macaroni penguin.



Thank you very much, hartstikke bedankt, Alvin!

In: from Sri Lanka

It's always a pleasure to send train and lighthouse postcards and cars and lighthouses on stamps to Ravindra in Sri Lanka. And also a pleasure to receive the beautiful views of his country in return.





And of sea life in the ocean around Sri Lanka (do you spot Dory?!):



The postcards arrived with beautiful stamps on the back:











In the past year we exchanged much more postcards, among them these also:













Thank you very much, Ravindra!

Sunday stamps: Water birds

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is 'Water Birds'.
As I love birds this is an other favourite subject of mine!

The first two stamps I love to share with you I've published before, be it not for Sunday Stamps. Thanks to FinnBadger I received these two wonderful sea birds: a Frigatebird and a Tufted Puffin. Both on an awesome envelope, made out of a calendar page showing birds by Charley Harper. The Flamingo of course is a water bird, too.
And - thank you FinnBadger for correcting me - I first thought the Frigatebird had been created by this famous artist, too, but it appears to have been designed by Tyler Lang, who has created many more animals illustrations, which at first sight remind me of Charley Harper's birds, but when you look close their style is so different!



The puffin has been designed by Robert Giusti.

And as puffins belong to my most favourite birds and Harper to one of my favourite artists (he has created a lot of bird pictures) and Tyler Lang's artwork I think inspiring, too, no need to say that FinnBadger's mail made my day :-)

In the Netherlands also various birds have been imaged on stamps.
These two stamp sheets have been issued in 2003 as a tribute to the Dutch wad in the Wadden area. The images have been designed by Eke van Mansvelt.



You can see the 'Scholekster'(Eurasian Oystercatcher), the 'Lepelaar' (Spoonbill), two kinds of Geese, the 'Grote Mantelmeeuw' (Great black-backed gull, I guess - there are a lot of kinds of sea gulls), the 'Wulp' (Eurasian curlew), some non-bird animals
and on the sheet itself the 'Visdief' (Common Tern), 'Plevieren' (Plovers).



The Wadden is a part of the north Sea, south of the so-called Wadden Islands. Since 2009 it is a UNESCO world heritage site, nevertheless the area is threatened, by pollution, by business plans etcetera, so I hope (and in fact expect) the area will continue to be protected.

By the way, the postage has increased a lot since 2003. In that year we had to pay € 0,39 for national mail and € 0.59 for international mail (all up to 20 grams). Anno 2016 it is € 0.73 for national mail and € 1.25 for international mail..

See more Sea Birds - and Charley Harper stamps! - at and via the links under this Sunday's Sunday Stamps blog!

In: from the USA

Already since my childhood the puffin ('papegaaiduiker' in Dutch, which literally means 'parrot diver') is one of my most favourite birds. I always had thought that there only was one species of puffins, but last year I learnt that the one I knew is named the Atlantic puffin and that there are two more puffins.

So I was very pleased with this recent postcard, which FinnBadger has sent me from the USA (yay, FinnBadger, I jumped another hole in the air :-) ), and to which he had added a stamp of the Tufted puffin (and a Frigatebird, the only one of the three who I have seen in real - an intriguing bird, too).
The picture above has been designed by famous American artist Charley Harper.



The card came in an envelope, made of a Charley Harper calendar page. I've posted the beautiful envelope somewhere else on the world wide web, but the first bird - tiny in an edge of the envelope - which immediately attracted my sight I'll show below. It is... a puffin :-)



Thank you very much, FinnBadger!

In: from Hong Kong

World Post Day is celebrated each year on 9 October, the anniversary of the establishment of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in 1874 in Bern. In 1969 the day was declared World Post Day by the UPU Congress, which was held in Tokyo in that year.

As far as I know in the Netherlands there haven't been issued stamps to celebrate World Post Day. In my collection I have none, and on the internet I only found one stamp and a postmark on the UPU (which is 'Wereldpostvereniging' in Dutch).
A yearly stamp on the 'Day of the postage stamp' is issued on a later date in October (like this 2014 stamp, on 17 October, or the 2015 stamp on 16 October).

In contrary, other countries pay more attention to World Post Day. I was very happy to receive a postcard from Natalie from Hong Kong. The back side showed these beautiful stamps, cancelled by a suitable postmark:



The stamps came on a beautiful postcard as well, showing a fine watercolour painting by Shen Ping.



Thank you very much, Natalie!

In: from France

Some years ago I was in the south of Spain, and along the way I suddenly saw flamingoes in the wild. I was surprised, because until that day I always had thought these amazing birds were living in countries more southward.
Last week, also to my suprise, I learned that flamingoes even are living north from Spain, too. This postcard shows flamingoes in Sigeán, in the south of France.

The card came with more than one stamp.



Thank you very much, merci beaucoup, Val!

Sunday stamps: Animals in the wild

This time the Sunday Stamps' theme is - like many other themes - a favourite of mine: animals in the wild.

One family of animals I admire for both their beauty and for something we, humans, are not able to do: birds!
Bird are able to fly (except for ratites of course). So caged birds I always think sad. While watching birds fly in the wild always makes me smile and provides a sense of freedom.

This great flying tern stamp I received from South Africa.
By the way, a flying tern is in the logo of the international bird protection organization Bird Life, and also in the logos of several partners, among them the Dutch and South African bird protection NGO's.



Love the way the stamp has been postmarked across. As if it is to show how high a bird can fly :-)

The following stamps show the contrast between a caged bird and birds in the wild:



Well, the caged bird isn't on a stamp himself, but is part of a larger stamp sheet, of which the stamp shows an other freely flying species.
The godwit (grutto in Dutch) is a bird who thrives in the grass-land. Grass-land birds have been, and still are, threatened by intensive farming in our densely populated country. Fortunately there are several initiatives to help farmers combine farming with nature protection (but still it's not enough, I am afraid).

Other flying birds are these wild ducks, beautifully pictured on a Finnish stamp. This bird is common in many countries.



To my pleasure I see that both Violet Sky and Joy have posted Australian stamps. In Australia some of my all-time favourite animals are liviung: the echidna, the platypus, the kookaburra, the cassowary and the brushturkey. The last-mentioned I've never seen on a stamp, the others I did see.
Among them this kookaburra:



And, my favourite stamp (which I fortunately received more than once!), the platypus:



Some other wild life, tiny ones:



However, the words 'Animals in the wild' will make most people think of larger animals, mammals to be specific.

Animals in forests and nature reserves, from Belarus, Russia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands (the latter is a personalized stamp, temporary issued by natuurlijkefoto.nl):











Wild animals like elephants....



... and lions (this is from a stamp sheet showing more animals, that is, silhouets):



And arctic animals, alas endangered, too:



Check Sunday Stamps for more animals-in-the-wild stamps!