Tag: postcrossing

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links and ideas postcards postcrossing pretty things

off with her head!


can the queen be put to a better use?, asks graphic designer and illustrator jamie wieck. well, apparently the answer is yes – he build a set of really cute cards where the queen stamp plays an important (and original) role.
here’s what he has to say:

“Something unique about British culture is the annual sit down after a bloating Christmas lunch to watch the Queen deliver her seasonal message on TV. Well I that, and to watch somebody die/get married/get-married-then-die on Eastenders.
Inspired by this image of annual togetherness I created a Christmas card that needed the Queen herself to complete the image – after all Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without the Queen.

But for the anti-royalists amongst you I figured it was only fair that the Queen should get a comeuppance of sorts…”

check out his website for lots of other good questions.

(via oh joy!)

Categories
in china just life links and ideas postcards postcrossing

our own little ikea hack

a few months ago, at ikea, we noticed this pot lid holder. we don’t have a lot of pots and less pot lids even, but we purchased it anyway. guess what we use it for… postcards, of course!!

postcards stand 3

it’s isn’t exactly an ikea “hack”, but it fits our needs well. also, the higher racks are smaller and the lower ones are larger, which comes in quite handy for those big sized ones.

we don’t like the idea of “storing” postcards away, once received. they make us happy, so we want to look at them! :)

more pictures, on flickr (click for larger):

postcards stand 2     postcards stand 1

Categories
geek

poor postman pat!

did you know the most common name for a city in the world is “oktjabrskij”? or that there are 11 cities named “springfield” in the usa, and another 11 named “clinton”? :)

here’s a ranking of the top-20 most frequent names of cities, freshly squeezed from postcrossing‘s database (might not be totally accurate):

City name      Country     Total of cities    
Oktjabrskij Russia 23
Springfield USA 11
Clinton USA 11
Pervomajskij Russia 11
Neustadt Germany 9
Madison USA 8
Hidalgo Mexico 8
Komsomolskij Russia 8
Washington USA 8
Lebanon USA 8
Shāhpur India 8
Dmytrivka Ukraine 7
Kamenka Russia 7
Auburn USA 7
Burlington USA 7
Greenville USA 7
Viişoara Romania 7
Áyios Dimítrios Greece 7
Troickoje Russia 7
Farmington USA 7

impressive redundancy if you ask me, but then again, except maybe a couple of countries, all the others on this list are pretty big… perhaps they just ran out of imagination?

anyway, there you go: one more reason never to forget the zip code! 8-)

Categories
just life pretty things

postcards and lists

lists and postcards

two things i love: postcards and lists. in december, both are used (even) more frequently than usual around here.

the postcards in the photo were courtesy of a drawn.ca coupon for moo. as usual, moo‘s quality is flawless but lately i’ve been a bit disappointed by them. the two orders i made from china were lost and had to be re-sent. and i’m still waiting for a reply to an email sent about… 2 months ago?

(though they did the re-sending rather fast and successfully, i can’t help to still feel a bit sad. i don’t have high expectations for a lot of companies, but some, those which i really like and recommend, i set my standards high. the unanswered email really bugged me, maybe because i answer so many.)

anyway, all of my postcards have designs by the talented blanca gomez. she’s one of the several artists whose work you can choose from when making your cards. they’re so cute that i’ve framed one of them and haven’t had the courage to send any of the others… they’re just sitting on my desk, being pretty. :)

update: moo did answer afterall, but i didn’t get the email they sent.
they got back at me when they read this post, and forwarded that email. had me smiling – blogs matter. :)
note to people out there: don’t send big files through emails, you never know what other people’s email size limits are!

Categories
geek postcrossing

the problem is my english is not very famous…

O O O O O O O O O O O


a big portion of the weekend is spent answering emails that have been piling up through the week. from trivial questions, location changes requests, “i think this user is acting fishy”, people whose “english is not very famous” (that quote actually made us laugh almost to tears!), their email is not working, how much is a stamp to madagascar…
we try to make the effort to answer even the silliest email (quicktext and the quickmove extensions for thunderbird give us a precious hand, common sense is also an underestimated tool).

complaints and requests, most of the time. mais hélas, once in a while, a little kid (or a full class), a grandma or a family somewhere writes to say how sending postcards makes them happy or is keeping them in touch with the world.

and all is right and meaningful again. it feels really good to be part of a project that doesn’t specifically target “people our age”, but instead stretches to reach people everywhere, young and old, more or less internet savvy, with interests as vast as bunny-hopping (as in training bunnies to jump around – i kid you not!) or carol singing.

the only common thing between them is the love of something offline: postcards on their mailbox, when they get home. :)

(on the picture, what i do when i have too much to do: as levi would say, “pantominate”. take pictures, arrange flowers, catalogue coffee marks. what do you do?)