Postcrossing Blog

And now, for something a bit different: Lenka Clayton and Michael Crowe are two creative artists with a very special goal – to send a personal handwritten letter to everyone in the world! Impossible? Most likely. Crazy? Perhaps. But it’s surely different, and they are doing their best to do it in a creative and mysterious way – they call it Mysterious Letters.

In April last year, they have sent handwritten letters to all 467 households in the Irish village of Cushendall – not bad for a start. And in November, they wrote 620 letters – all different and personal – to each home in Polish Hill (Pittsburgh, USA). Here’s what BBC had to say about it:

But they are not stopping here. Now they want to go even bigger and write to even more people!

This time, they are allowing anyone to get involved in their enthusiastic plan – they have setup their project at kickstarter.com so that people can donate towards it (if there aren’t enough supporters, the donation is returned).

In exchange for the donations, they are offering peculiar things – from allowing the supporters to choose a theme for the letters they will send, to actually receive handwritten letters from Michael and Lenka themselves. For the largest supporter level, they are even offering to hand deliver a letter to the supporter in person!

Even though it sounds a bit crazy, we love the creative way they are doing it all. You can find more information about the project at their Mysterious Letters blog and for details of how help them, check here.

Some people love receiving postcards that show beautiful scenes or pleasant paintings while others prefer those that have some kind of personal touch. Not surprisingly, many people love getting postcards that are witty… that make them think… that tease their brain… and at the same time, make them laugh.

Introducing… Indexed Postcards by Jessica Hagy.

Thanks to fellow Postcrosser, Addis R. Perez (username: rainmelonpie) from Puerto Rico, who shared with us the info about Ms. Hagy’s unique set of postcards. Now many of you will know about these witty postcards and may love them, too.

Indexed postcards started as simple, weekday-morning blog entries back in 2006. On pieces of 3×5 index cards, Jessica Hagy would connect a number of words and phrases wittingly with charts and diagrams that look like those figures that you encountered in your high school geometry or algebra class.

Some of the cards comment about controversial topics such as immigration, religion, politics, and the media while most are based on real life experiences and observations of the author—all written in such a way that makes you realize how real the connections are!

Here are some of Jessica’s most famous and most controversial Indexed creations:

Zip it back up. There are secrets in there.


All mixed up

These Indexed cards and many more have been featured in various media outlets such as Time Magazine, GOOD Magazine, BBC Magazine Online, NY Times Freakonomics, PC Mag, Yahoo, and Guardian UK. You can check out more of Jessica’s work here: Indexed.

Good news for many Postcrossers who love or will love Jessica’s brilliant creations: Jessica Hagy has teamed up with Chronicle Books and published an Indexed Postcard Book. Just follow this link to check it out: Indexed Book on Amazon.com, .ca, .co.uk, or .de.

What do you think of them? Do share!

Päivää and God dag Postcrossers!

Many of you are already avid fans of Moomins/MuminTroll/Muumi. The Moomins are the major characters in the series of comic strips and books illustrated and written by renowned Finnish artist Tove Jansson, who declared that his characters are partially based on many of her family and friends.

The main appearance of Moomins is very similar to hippopotamuses but they are actually a family of trolls who live in Moominvalley. The Moomins interact with their friends such as Hemulens, Sniff, The Snork maiden, Snufkin and Little My. The major premise of most Moomin stories revolves around the idea of accepting the differences of others and accommodating their specific needs.

The first book was released in 1945 and soon more books, a comic strip series, and a television adaptation followed. There are even a number of movies based on Jansson’s lovable family of trolls. Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Britain, Austria, Germany, and Japan all made TV and movie adaptations of the Moomins.

It was not long after the success of Moomins (called the Moomin Boom) reached its peak as operas, Moomin products, playrooms, museums, albums, and even a Moomin theme park emerged in many parts of Finland and Japan.

If you have any other interesting information about Moomins, just comment and share!

Hola Postcrossers! We hope you had a wonderful Easter! We found another interesting topic about postcards: Kaj Stenvall and his famous Duck.

Lots of Postcrossers have been emailing us about this amazing and creative Finnish painter and his wonderful masterpieces that frequently feature a duck in many settings and characterizations.

Stenvall’s paintings are now being used in postcards everywhere. So you either have seen some of these postcards lately but didn’t know who the painter was or you’re familiar with the painter but do not have any idea why he paints the way he does.

If you don’t know anything about this painter at all, read along because we’re sure you’ll find him and his paintings very interesting. Who knows, you’ll even want a postcard with his famous duck paintings.

It all started in 1989 when Stenvall made a few paintings featuring a duck that looks very similar to Walt Disney’s Donald Duck. However, his duck’s appearance has increasingly moved away from the Disney character’s guise through the years. The duck’s gender, age, and skin color have all shifted from one painting to another. The Duck has slowly become its own character.

According to Stenvall himself, the Duck is a symbol of humanity. Contrary to popular belief, the Duck isn’t Stenvall’s alter ego nor does it serve any purpose in delivering some kind of message from Stenvall. According to Stenvall’s official website,

It’s simply a jumping off point into the multidimensional world of Stenvall’s art, to draw the viewer deep inside his paintings and then, to step aside.

Isn’t that genius thinking?

What’s even better is that the duck makes viewers think about its purpose and imagine things that Stenvall himself wouldn’t even think about his own paintings.

Challenge yourself and your postcard recipients by sending them one of Stenvall’s paintings. Let’s see what stories you guys can come up with just by looking at the duck and its surroundings.

If you want to see more of Stenvall’s art, visit his website here.

We aren’t sure if these postcards are available online but we found a couple at this website: Art Unlimited.

If any of you have any idea where your fellow Postcrossers can get one online, please comment on this blog post and leave a link! Thanks a lot!

Till next time!

Sometimes when we are surfing around on the interwebs, we find little pearls that we want to share with you all. Today we want to tell you about the “World’s smallest postal service”!

Anyone can use this to create the tiniest and cutest little letters. Here’s how it works:

“You write a letter (up to 120 words!) and it is transcribed onto tiny stationery (1 × 1.5 inches) with a magical transcription device. It then goes into a tiny envelope which gets addressed, stamped, and sealed with a minuscule wax seal with your initial on it.

The letter then goes into a see-through folded coin case and is packaged up with a magnifying glass in a larger glassine envelope, finished off with a large “World’s Smallest Letter” wax seal. It is put in a sturdy mailer for shipping. I can send your letter directly to a recipient of your choice, or to you if you would like to distribute it yourself.”

The result is completely adorable and the only problem is that we might want to keep it for ourselves instead of giving it someone else! And it can be used for so many things: thank you letters, birthday cards, super cute love letters – they even have a “World’s smallest card from the tooth fairy” one!

This idea was created by Lea Redmond, who explains it like this:

In the summer of 2008, the idea just popped into my head and it was so hilarious that I had no choice but to materialize it. For the first “performance”, I strapped my miniature desk to my back inside my grandmother’s old wicker suitcase, filled the milk crate on my bicycle with tools and supplies, and coasted down to Sweet Adeline Bakeshop in Oakland, CA, nervous as all heck. I was delighted to find that there are lots of people out there that are equally charmed by these little curios.

Impossible not to love it! And if you are San Francisco area, you can actually see it in person and get a handwritten version of it! But if you are not, you can order everything online and she accepts international orders so be sure to check the website for more information about it!

PS: Do you know other postal-related cuteness online? Share it with us!