Postcrossing Blog

Petr Václavek is the creator of the Acorn Elves, beloved characters in the Postcrossing community and beyond.

Petr paused from his work last autumn to share with Clarisse (aka CStar9) how he got his start in photography, give us an inside look at his artistic process, and let us peek at the cute stickers he debuted last year.

You’ve described the acorn elves (dubánci, in Czech) as a happy accident. When building woodland characters to entertain your children, you ran out of chestnuts and switched to using acorns. At what point did you realize this was an idea that could be widely – even globally – popular?

Yes, it was exactly like that – the acorn elves were created by accident. We ran out of chestnuts and so I used acorns instead, which we had plenty of in the garden. I first realised the popularity of the acorn elves when I posted the first pictures of them on social media – everyone loved them and they were one of my most successful posts. But it took me another year to realize how popular they really are. The first year I made only two or three figures, but a year later I made more and since then I’ve been making them regularly. The most successful one was of course the one sitting on the toilet, which literally went around the world (at least on the internet).

What are some elements that define Dubánci for you?

Playful, curious, mischievous, funny, mischievous again… They are forest creatures that have inhabited oak forests since time immemorial (sometimes you can see them in nature, but they are very shy and can hide themselves skillfully), but at the same time they are – at least some of them – very curious and so they watch what is happening in the human world and then try to imitate humans. But they don’t always get everything right and that’s how a lot of comical situations arise, which I like to capture in photographs.

How do you get an idea from your head to the final image? Which step in that process is generally the most challenging / time-intensive?

The process is sometimes a bit lengthy – sometimes it takes a few years from the initial idea, because I have a lot of ideas and they keep coming. In order to get them out of my head and not forget them, I write them down – actually, I sketch them – in a notebook, and then once in a while I make one of the ideas come true – I build an acorn elf based on the sketch, take it to the woods or some other nice place, take a photo of it there, and then edit the photos in Photoshop at home.

Sometimes the hardest part is to make the acorn elf, sometimes to glue together its equipment (bike, motorbike, lantern), and sometimes it’s much harder to take photos. Just to find a suitable place in the forest I have run dozens of kilometers there. Sometimes the shot needs a lot of editing in Photoshop, because even digital photography isn’t omnipotent (or I shot it wrong).

But I enjoy all of the above stages and am happy when the result entertains the fans.

Is there a particular image that has a funny or surprising creation story?

It’s interesting that even after eight years I still remember where I took each photo, including the story that led to the photo. Many of the photos were taken with my youngest daughter in the stroller – when she was about to go to bed after lunch, I loaded her into the stroller, grabbed my acorn elves and camera, and headed out into the woods. Along the way I looked for nice places to take pictures and when she finally fell asleep, I stopped and took pictures of acorn elves.

I have made several means of transport for the acorn elves. The first one was a bicycle (I am an avid amateur cyclist), followed by a scooter, a skateboard and then a motorbike came to mind. But I wanted it to be perfect, so I found the plans of a historic Czech motorcycle, Jawa 250, and glued together a faithful copy of it. It’s probably their most challenging item – it took me 10 hours to glue it together, but the result is worth it!

While photographing the instructions for making Halloween pumpkin decorations for a children’s magazine, one of the acorn elves dropped his little hand. So I immediately shot a horror scene, which was definitely not in the plan. At least the kids will be more careful of their fingers when they are working with the knife while carving the pumpkins!

My most famous and favourite photo is of the acorn elf sitting on the toilet and reading newspapers. When I was taking a set of postcards for the holiday campers, I thought I would reuse the toilet! All I had to do was make a wooden caddy and a funny new scene was ready!

This was one of the first acorn elves postcards. The owner of a local postcard company talked me into designing a couple of postcards with acorn elves on them. And when I told him that postcards weren’t used much anymore, he showed me Postcrossing. I was impressed and immediately asked him what should be on the postcard, what motif would users like the most. He replied – well, something with mail, like a mailbox. I immediately remembered that a few days ago I was building little houses for the acorn elves in the nearby forest with kids, so I just glued together a mailbox and some letters and postcards from birch bark at home and went to take pictures.

I was once approached by a magazine that said they would like to do an article on acorn elves and that they could be on the cover, but as it was for the Christmas issue they wanted something with a Christmas theme and came up with the nativity scene.

I took it as a challenge and had a great time. Especially shooting in the dark and lighting the scene. It made a perfect cover and to this day it is one of the most beautiful Christmas cards.

What is your studio like?

I may surprise you, but I don’t have a studio. I usually glue them in the evenings at home, right in the living room on the table, when my wife and children are asleep. I have a quiet place to work and no one disturbs me. It’s just that the midnight clean-up is sometimes more difficult, because I have to carry a lot of boxes of material and all sorts of tools while I’m working.

The most important tool in the work is of course the hot glue gun – it’s unbelievable what you can do with a melt gun. At one time I used to make stuffed animals with my youngest daughter with a melt gun because I got tired of sewing them with a needle :) Another must is a sharp knife or gardening shears. But sometimes you also need to use a jigsaw, a hacksaw, a small cutter or a soldering iron.

And if you ever catch me gluing acorn elves in the evening, you might be surprised how often I look in the mirror and try out their poses – I want the result to look as natural as possible. So sometimes I’ll use a mirror, other times I’ll search the internet for inspirational photos of the pose.

Acorn elves look simple. But there are trade skills needed to create their world: woodworking, photography, and design, to name a few. You learned woodworking in your father’s workshop as a child, then studied software engineering and became a programmer and web designer. When did photography come into your toolkit? And, do you still work as a designer?

When I was a kid, I liked to help my dad in the darkroom when he developed our family photos, but I didn’t try photography then. I didn’t get interested until after graduation, when I was a senior front-end developer for a multinational corporation and the first affordable digital cameras came out.

Sometime in 2003 I bought an Olympus C730 digital ultrazoom with an amazing 3 megapixel resolution and 10x optical zoom. It was a small miracle for me and I fell completely in love with digital photography – I watched a lot of photography websites, had my images critiqued and gradually learned how to take decent pictures.

Everyone liked my photos and I often heard that I could do it for a living. So I tried uploading my images to microstock sites and was surprised at how well they sold. So I gradually built up my portfolio on the microstock in the evenings, and later I started adding vector illustrations because I found they sold even more and I enjoyed making them.

As time went on, my earnings from the microstock were more than my income from my corporate job, so I switched to freelancing. Nowadays, I still make my living from the microstock, but I do other graphic design work on commission from time to time, and then of course the acorn elves make some money too, but I still think of them as my creative escapades that I do for fun.

What is your relationship to postal mail, and how has that evolved over time?

I love the mail, it’s always a surprise what turns up in the mailbox and when it arrives. When I discovered Postcrossing, I thought it was a great idea and I love it! My kids and I have sent several postcards out into the world this way. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the price of postage doesn’t go up too much and that Postcrossing will continue to thrive in the future.

And one more thing – this year I have prepared a special set of stickers with acorn elves for decorating postcards. So maybe someone will like it.

What’s something you’re proud of, outside of the acorn elves project?

Definitely my kids! We have three and they’re so smart. My oldest is following in my programming footsteps and my two daughters are incredibly creative, so I have my acorn elves followers.

The acorn elves are now postcards, calendars, stickers, t-shirts, books, even games. What’s next for them, and for you?

I’ve been making postcards, calendars, and t-shirts for years. I thought it was a shame to keep the photos only on the internet. This way, the acorn elves are more exposed to the real world and many more people get to know them. Over time, in addition to my Czech e-shop, I started a shop on Zazzle, just to fulfill the wishes of my foreign fans. And of course I also made a separate site in English.

In the last few years, I’ve started to create more books. I began to collaborate with a successful children’s book writer Klara Smolíková and so gradually three books with stories of acorn elves for children were created. It’s a different job again, when I have to read the text and take pictures according to the story.

I didn’t limit the author in any way as to what is and isn’t possible in photography and so there were many challenges that I thought I couldn’t possibly overcome. For example, I photographed a flying bird nest with a lizard and an acorn elf, or an acorn elf with a dog fleeing underground through mole burrows from fighting earthworms. But in the end I did it all! And if I can get a publisher abroad, these lovely books will be published in English.

Actually, I have already published one book in France, bilingual (English and French): Acorn Elves – the lovely creatures from Petr Vaclavek. But it doesn’t contain a story for children; it’s a book of my photos with short bilingual captions, a short interview, and a photo guide for gluing and taking pictures of an acorn elf.

What does the future hold for the acorn elves?

I’d love to see them in an animated movie or TV show someday. I’ve been working with a Czech company on this for a year now, but it’s a long haul – you can’t do it with one person anymore. I definitely also want to try to come up with a board game with acorn elves in the next few years, and maybe we can make a computer game – that would be a nice stepping stone to a movie.

You can find out more about Petr and his acorn elves on his website, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube or other social media. You can also visit his shop for Europe or for the rest of the world.

And now, for the traditional giveaway! Clarisse is going to send 4 postcards featuring Petr’s Acorn Elves to 4 randomly picked postcrossers. To participate, you have to tell us: “If you could create your own acorn elf, what would it look like or what would it be doing?” Leave a comment below, and come back this time next week to check out the winners!

The writing prompts invite postcrossers to write about a different topic on their postcards’ messages every month. These are just suggestions though — if you already know what you want to write about, or the recipient gives you some pointers, that’s great too!

Recently, Barbara (bjhowden) wrote to us about a theme she suggests in her profile for people writing to her: what are your earliest memories? Over time, a lot of people have answered the prompt, and she shared some of the themes with us—the birth of siblings, time with grandparents, pranks played as a child, and sometimes ones which are more bittersweet or painful. Either way, a lot of people seem to want to talk about it.

It’s a lovely project, and we’d like to invite everyone to participate this month in the postcards you write!

Both of my earliest memories are from when I was just barely two years old, so I’ve often been asked if I’m sure I really remember, and don’t just know the story. But my family are pretty certain that I do, because I wasn’t told the story. I remembered it myself, and only shared the fact that I remembered it with my mother much later. It’s surprisingly vivid still, all the same; I remember my grampy (my father’s father) holding me and teaching me to make a strong Lego house by overlapping the bricks instead of just clipping them one on top of the other in a column. My other very early memory is about him as well, probably a few days later since he was no longer sitting up.

As you might have guessed, my grampy died not long after; I count myself very fortunate that I have these precious memories! Funnily enough, I also remember teaching my younger sister to build a secure Lego foundation, in the same way, some years later. So in a way, Grampy taught both of us, even though he didn’t meet my sister.

What about you? Are your earliest memories something important, or something small? How old are you in your earliest memory? We’d love to hear your reminisces on the cards you write this month—and in the comments here too, if you like!

I love board games, and I know many of you do too. There’s something magical about getting friends around a table and trying to outsmart each other or collaborate towards a common objective. We laugh at unexpected twists, get the satisfaction of solving tricky puzzles and explore different worlds together… They’re brilliant!

So, for everyone who loves board games as well as postcards, Fenrir Boardgames is launching a new game that blends the best of both worlds—it’s a journey full of postcards, stamps and souvenirs, and it’s appropriately called Postcards!

The game invites you to hop on your bicycle and embark on a picturesque adventure through 13 different regions of metropolitan France. As you cycle through these iconic locations, your goal is to camp around France, sharing your travels by sending postcards and collecting souvenirs. The game contains beautiful design elements, including gorgeous postcards, Marianne-themed stamps and many other small markers. I have a soft spot for board games with lots of little tokens, and all these look sturdy and well-finished.

We received an advance copy to give the game a try and thoroughly enjoyed playing it. At first, we were too focused on just sending postcards 😅… but quickly realized the different layers of strategy one can apply to get points and thus win the game. You can use the different types of camping sites to gather bonuses and also collect souvenirs, all with their own perks. Each game takes between 30 and 45 minutes, and up to 4 people can play together. And there’s also a solo mode!

I wish they sold the postcards separately though, in a usable format — they’re so nice! 😍 It truly makes you want to travel to France to visit these places one by one.

Currently live on Kickstarter, Fenrir is seeking support to bring the Postcards game to life. The campaign runs until February 10, and by backing it, you’ll not only get your hands on a copy later this year, but also support a game that resonates with our shared love for postcards and adventure. Check out the Kickstarter campaign to learn more and consider supporting this exciting endeavor.

Happy gaming nights!

February is a busy month in the mail calendar, and so it’s time for your yearly heads-up to make sure you have time to prepare!

We love a good mail challenge around here, and since February is the Month of Letters, it is time to dust off all that special stationery and put pen to paper! It’s the perfect opportunity for reconnecting with family and friends, sending a Valentine card to your special someone, saying thank you to the helpful people in your life… or simply surprising strangers across the world with postcards! 😉

The rules of the Month of Letters challenge are simple:

• Mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture or a cutting from a newspaper… anything goes!
• Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

That’s it! The challenge started back in 2012, after American writer Mary Robinette Kowal decided it was time for a break from the internet. She spent a month offline, and asked her friends to communicate with her through letters. The results were relaxing and intimate, so she decided to invite others to join, sparking a yearly flurry of correspondence.
If you’re planning to join this year, you’re welcome to share your progress with other participants on this forum topic.

Another happy mail-related event coming up is Mail Carrier Appreciation Day, which happens every year on February 4th. This is the day to celebrate our trusty mail carriers, who make it possible for this hobby to exist by delivering all our postcards!

The date falls on a Tuesday this year, so be sure to prepare something nice for your mail carrier the day before — for instance, pour your gratitude into a thank you note that you’ll deliver (or affix to your mailbox) for them to discover on their rounds. I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of their day week!

If you can, take a photo of what you did to celebrate this special day, and share a link to it in the comments! 😊

Now that the rush of the 80 million milestone is behind us, it’s time to sit down and sift through the data to see how Postcrossing is doing, stats-wise. We know many of you like to check out these posts with numbers and statistics, so let’s get to it!

5,014,287 postcards received

That’s a good 58,827 postcards more than last year, which is great to see! A steady average of 5 million postcards a year is quite impressive and puts us on track to celebrate 100 million postcards sometime in 2029!

29.1 average travel days and 19.2 median travel days

Average travel times keep increasing slightly, year after year, reflecting postal delays, global logistical challenges or just a higher number of postcards traveling over slower routes. However, the median travel days have only slightly increased, indicating that most postcards still arrive in a reasonable timeframe.

27,256,320,327 kms (16,936,292,258 miles) traveled

That’s a little bit more than Voyager 1’s current distance from Earth! 🛰️

19,941 kms (12,391 miles) was the longest distance traveled

Postcard ES-784984 was our long distance winner of 2024, again with the classic combo from Spain to New Zealand! Sabine (aka sabine223) from Germany used the Travel Mode in Spain last February and unknowingly sent the postcard that traveled the longest distance last year, aaaaaaaaaall the way to Neil (aka durbanshark) in Auckland.

The average distance a postcard traveled in Postcrossing in 2024 was around 5,436 kms (or 3,377 miles). It looks like our average postcard easily travels the length of a continent, which is impressive!

1,194,298 postcards were sent from Germany

Germany is once again the country with the most postcards sent in Postcrossing, at just over 1 million postcards per year! 💪 The USA came very close to that magical number, but is not yet over the threshold. Surprisingly, China had a big jump up the charts this year, surpassing Finland and Japan to reach the fifth place in the rankings. Well done! Here’s how the rest of the top 20 chart looks like:

For those unfamiliar with this statistic, here’s a quick explanation: it represents the number of postcards sent from these countries and registered in 2024. This includes some postcards that were sent in 2023 but only registered in 2024, while others requested in 2024 are not included because they’re still in transit and will likely be registered in the coming weeks or months. By focusing on postcards registered within a specific timeframe, we can maintain consistency and make comparisons with previous years more straightforward.

BeckyS sent the most postcards

Looks like BeckyS grabbed first place this year, up from second last year! 😊 The top 5 senders in Postcrossing continue to be from the USA: BeckyS (2,297), ennasor (2,280), Shelleh (2,273), Djain (2,237) and RomaandPaul (2,231) took the top spots. All of them have chosen to exchange postcards within the USA, which speeds things up… as does the fact that the USA does not currently send mail to Russia, a country with slower mail delivery.

If we count only international exchanges though, then ned44440 in Ireland 🇮🇪 takes the cake, with 1,871 postcards sent! Other runner-ups are mapcardcollector 🇬🇧 (1,841), tiinama 🇫🇮 (1,833), SMatti 🇫🇮 (1,827) and uconn 🇺🇸 (1,802).

Åland Islands sent the most postcards per capita

Åland Islands, Finland and Liechtenstein continue to be the top contributors per capita, with Belarus rising through the rankings this year to grab fourth place.

(*) This ranking is calculated per 1,000 inhabitants, for countries with at least 10 members.

October 1 was the day in which more postcards were sent in 2024 (81,810)

As expected, and even with some limits in place, World Postcard Day continues to beat all the records, with about five times more postcards being sent on that day than on any other random day. 😅 It’s a lot of pressure on Postcrossing’s servers and database, but each year we introduce tweaks that seem to improve the situation and help things go smoothly.

Other big days this year were December 1st (the start of the Cards for Literacy initiative), the days around October 1st, and other assorted days between January and March.

November 13 was the day in which more postcards were received in 2024

Usually, the day with most postcards received is sometime in January… but not in 2024! November 13 saw the peak of postcards being registered, with 19,866 of them arriving to their destinations on that day alone. Most of the other high volume days happened between October and January.

Postcards were sent from 224 countries and received in 157 countries

Postcards were sent from an additional 3 countries or territories this year! Woohoo! Thanks to the Travel Mode, more and more postcrossers make an effort to locate a local wifi network, postcards and a post office during their trips abroad, so that they can send some postcards. That’s why the difference between the number of countries that sent postcards and those that received them is relatively large. Neat!

11,572 new forum topics and 892,564 forum posts in 2024

Less new forum topics, but more posts in 2024! The forum continues to be a welcoming space to organize events, swap postcards, play games or just a place where people can chat and get to know each other. This is thanks to our team of volunteer moderators, who do an excellent job keeping things tidy and running smoothly.

1,835 meetups in 62 countries

A slightly higher number of meetups, but the same number of countries! A curious mind might ask whether these 62 countries were the exact same ones that had meetups in 2023… they were not! For instance, Gibraltar, Jordan and Denmark all had meetings in 2024 but did not have them the year before. Wouldn’t it be cool if in the future we could have meetings in 100 different countries? It should be possible!

11,987 email replies

This is how many support emails the team has replied to throughout the year — a mind-boggling average of 32 per day. 🤯 That’s… a lot of emails!

And that’s all, folks! 2024 was another good year for Postcrossing, and these numbers offer a fascinating glimpse into it, highlighting the impressive scale and reach of our community. As we get started in 2025, there’s plenty to look forward to — new milestones, evolving trends, and even more postcards connecting people across the world. Here’s to another great year of postcards and connections!

PS: For those of you who would like to see longer rankings that don’t fit on a blog post, here they are.