Russian ballet postcard with great stamps

This lovely postcard came to me from Russia this week, as RU-1104338 via Postcrossing. The sender, Cathi, writes that this ballerina is the real deal and not just a posed photo. "Her legs are telling that she's a dancer: gastrocnemiuses look strong, perfect shape of shank, back is not slouching." If you're like me and wondering what that muscle she references might be, it's the calf muscles! She goes on to write a lot more about ballet and some ballet she loves, and why. It was a delightful education.



AND, she used fantastic stamps! What a lovely combination of folk art, portrait art, and a fine-looking beetle.



I like the folk art stamp the best - is it depicting a fairy tale? Why is this long-haired lady letting her hair down a stream? It reminds me of a watery Rapunzel. If any blog readers, Russian or otherwise, might know the answer, please do elucidate.

This is why I love Postcrossing - surprises like this in my mailbox all the time! If you enjoy sending mail and would like to receive more, I highly recommend Postcrossing for adventures in mailing. You will most likely get quite a lot of crappy postcards, but there are gems, too, and the international stamps are always fun.

Sempe ballet fold and mail

Continuing my addiction to fold and mails, here is one that is actually NOT from Chronicle Books. I stumbled upon this browsing around on the web, and couldn't resist. It is Sempé: Ballet Dancers Fold & Send Stationery from Phaidon Press. You can see more photos of the inside if you look at the listing on Amazon.com, where there are some nice customer-uploaded images.

Two of the stamps I used are Zazzle photostamps using photos of my kitties: Magic on the top and Soda on the bottom.

Ballet + the roots of democracy

Here's another combination of interesting vintage stamps. I am exceedingly fond of "the ability to write" stamp with the quill pen.