Memories...

In loving memory - snippets from Vienna

Z as in Ziel - A-Z challenge

Today is the last day of our challenge, we are "am Ziel" (Ziel means Finish in German).

Today also marks a special day in the Netherlands, Queen's day. Queen Beatrix abdicates and as of today, the Netherlands will finally have a king again, Willem Alexander.

The cards show the old Queen and the new King.

So, April is over and so is the A-Z challenge. I hope you have enjoyed getting to know postcrossing! A warm thank you to all challenge participants who visited and left a comment.
My April was busy so I did not have as much time to visit as planned, but I hope to visit some of the other blogs during the reflection days!

Y as in years - A-Z challenge

Y as in years...

This was the first card I received through the postcrossing project - that was 4 years ago. In the meantime I have received and sent over 600 official cards, and tons of swaps, tags, Round Robin, RAS and lottery cards. 

The postcrossing project itself is over 7 years old, with more than 400.000 members and almost 17 million sent cards.

x as in post-xing - A-Z challenge

Postcard crossing - postcrossing!

For me it's not only about the cards, but also about the effort people take to write something on the card, to choose a special card for me, to decorate it...

Here is a really wonderful card from Malaysia (MY-137141)

A wonderful drawing because the sender did not have a Peanuts card! Love it!

W as in What a wonderful world - A-Z challenge

What a wonderful world! 

That is also something we can learn from postcrossing: To cherish all the wonderful places on this planet.

Today I'm showing you a hidden gem in Europe:

Macedonia.

I have never been there but thanks to my wonderful swap-friend Ana I have received many beautiful cards from there. It is a place I'd love to visit one day!

Dojran Lake

Lake Mavrovo

V as in vacation - A-Z challenge

V is for vacation!

Postcards and vacattion - that just fits. I love to get cards from other people's vacations and I also always send cards from my own vacations.

There is also a RoundRobin on the postcrossing forum - the I'm going to Vacation RR - sign up and receive a card from a participant's holiday!

This card was sent by my Mom from her winter vacation!

 The other cards are from the Vacation RR:

Vacation #600 - Xiru

Vacation #600 - uliaya

The card shows Moscow, the international business centre

Vacation #602 - Butterfly_Kisses

U as in u2u - A-Z challenge

Today's postcrossing word is "u2u". 

That is the personal message system used in the postcrossing forum. It's the place where you exchange addresses or where you join a Round Robin.

FebRR - Julia, from Ukraine

U could also be for Ukraine, a very active country in the postcrossing community,

or of course for the US.

Feb13 RR - Triol

T as in tags - A-Z challenge

T is for tag! As in the game children play!

On postcrossing you can find many different tags - there are tags where one country tags another - tags for special cards like Easter - wishlist tags...

You tag the person above you and send this person a card according to the tag theme. Then you are the next one to be tagged.

The panda card was for one of my favorite tags - The Austria - Australia/New Zealand tag. Here, Austrian members tag Kiwis or Aussies, and Aussies or Kiwis tag Austrians :-) The card above was from Telopea.

This card is from the USA to Austria tag and was sent by Collette.

S as in (Sunday) Stamps - A-Z challenge

This is a combined post for Sunday stamps and the A-Z challenge!

Stamps are an essential part of postcrossing. You can't send cards without putting a stamp on them. Some postcrossers care more about the stamps, others just find the stamps interesting as well. 

There is a weekly meeting of stamps enthusiats on Viridian's blog - we meet to show stamps about a certain theme for "Sunday stamps" - this week it's the 119th meeting and the theme is: 

Earth Day and other April Celebrations.

This could be: Stamps celebrating Spring; National Poetry Month, Jazz Appreciation Month, Arbor Day, Opening Day for Baseball, St. George's Day, and More. Be creative and interpret this broadly.

My first stamps is about a special celebration: The last Queen's Day on April 30th as HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands will abdicate on this day, making her oldest son Willem-Alexander the new king and his oldest daughter the next crown princess. Amalia is shown on the stamps below.

The next stamp is somehow connectect to Earth Day - Go Green is always a good idea, not only on Earth day.

Another important April celebration was held on April 13th as my wonderful friend J got married!

And finally a stamp card I received through postcrossing:

Happy Sunday stamps - for more on stamps look here: 

And for the A-Z challenge: Sorry for posting a day early, but this letter fit today :-)

R as in Round Robin - A-Z challenge

R is about Round Robins!

What is a Round Robin? 

The concept of a RR is to form groups to exchange postcards, notebooks or other things. In the event of postcards, the owner of the RR (=host) chooses the theme (or themes), the amount of postcards and members of the group. She/He is responsible for organizing the groups, collecting and distributing the addresses and checking when the members of the group send and receive the postcards. 

The participates are required to send the postcards in a given time,and have to inform the RR host when they send and receive a card. 

Card is from the Big Monthly RR Feb13RR - The Big Monthly is one big group of up to 50 participants, so that means you're writing and receiving up to 49 cards. The RR is a preference based RR, where people are supposed to send you cards according to your preferences (in your postcrossing profile).

This card is from the Choose a country RR (600/30) - you choose a group host from the available groups and send and receive only 1 card.

From the vacation RR - the group host is on vacation and sends a card from there; you send back a card according to the sender's wishes.

Secret Christmas card RR - You join and get addresses of the members (how many you chose to send), but the other don't know who you are sending to...and you receive cards from other members. 

See you on Monday!

Q as in questions - A-Z challenge

We are approaching the end of week 3, so it's time to ask:

QUESTIONS, anyone?

Jan13RR - Perfecta 

There is a lot you can ask about a card: Where was it sent from? Where is it going? How much does it cost to send a card? What can I see on the card? Why did the sender choose the card? Do you like the card? Did it travel a long time or was it a speedy card? 

Australia/NZ - Austria tag, sent by Aussiebear

 So you see, there are a lot of questions. Do you want to know something more about postcrossing? Then post the questions in the comment section and I'll try my best to answer it :-)

Feb13 DAunches

The question "What is a Round Robin" will be answered tomorrow by the way!

P as in postcards - A-Z challenge

I have to start off-topic: Happy Birthday Bär :)

And now, on to today's letter:

P is the perfect letter for my project - it's about Postcrossing and Postcrossing is about postcards!

The card above is from a group in the forum - professional printed cards. It's about cards you design yourself but have them printed by a professional shop. Then you get high quality cards with a personal touch. I love to receive cards with selftaken pictures! 

And this card is from a special postcard/letter project: The letter month (more info here). It was a month of writing daily...but I failed. There are more projects on postcrossing - just have look at the forums or at the letter D.

O as in official postcard - A-Z challenge

O is for "official postcards".

Postcrossers call the cards that arrive via the postcrossing main site "official" postcards as these are the cards  with the postcrossing ID (see here). Only official cards are registered in the postcrossing system. 

The other cards (other as in non-official cards) are the cards that are received from a swap, tag or through the postcrossing forum.

This awesome Paralympic card arrived from the Netherlands: NL-1730192.

 "Official" cards tell you more about themselves: The card above travelled 872 km/542 miles over 6 days.

This card shows the Forbidden City, but was sent from Ukraine- UA-522824. 

FI-1691520 - from Finland.

#

Tomorrow is all about P...postcard? Postcrossing? Wait and see!

N as in Netiquette - A-Z challenge

Today's cards are presented by the letter N.

Here are some "nature" cards - waterfalls, berries, northern light, Norway...

Feb13 RR - jyxzn

Feb13RR - kvadrarute

CaC #610 jhbr

But my N theme is Netiquette - what to write on the cards and what themes you better avoid!

• Try to write something nice.
• Keep the language "child-safe" - you never know who stumbles over your card. (Same goes for the front of the card obviously)
• Postcrossing is NOT the place for political or religious discussions.
• It's not the place to preach about your point of view.

For me, Postcrossing is about learning about other countries, cultures, traditions...it's about learning, not judging.