Japanese spring postbox postcard

The lovely mail goddess Catwrangler recently took a trip to Japan, and I just got this wonderful spring postbox postcard from her. I love any postcards that have postal themes and/or show mailboxes, and I've been enamored of these Japanese postbox seasons postcards since I first saw them on Postcrossing. I have a summer one hanging above my writing desk already, and I was just thrilled to get this spring postcard, which will soon hang right next to it.



Of course she used a gorgeous stamp, and it got a really fine postmark. I had to take photos of both the postmark, and...



...a closeup of the gorgeous cherry blossoms stamp.

Thanks, Anna - you made my day!

Meta-marvelous from the UK

If you are anywhere near as much of a mail geek as I am, you would get very excited about pulling this fabulous envelope out of your mailbox. The writer made the envelope out of an old map, and added tags and collage elements and fun rubber stamps, not to mention exceedingly cool postage stamps. (Really, Lady Jane and James Bond? Swoon!)



At the request of a favorite blog reader, here's a closer look at those stamps. If you have a Flickr account, you can view large.



So this would be awesome already, no? I was careful to photograph the envelope before I opened it, to preserve its glory. (I will say for Royal Mail and US Postal service, this envelope arrived in beautiful, pristine condition.)



But that's not all, folks - we've only just begun! The letter itself was creatively typed on an old map, and included the grooviest polaroid photo.



Start here. HOW did he type on a curve and a diagonal like that? I don't know typewriters very well though I do appreciate their anachronistic charm, so this is quite a mystery. (I will insert an aside and say that I am generally not fond of computer-typed letters - I'd rather decipher even the most difficult handwriting, because there is such personality in handwriting - but somehow a typewriter is just different, and every bit as charming as handwriting.) And the typewriter ribbon/ink/what have you is BLOO. Another swoon! I left the typing intact here because I don't think they'll mind (this letter was signed from two people, though only one really did the typing), and it's just so cool.



So here is where he explained how they took a photo of the letter. The letter was typed and explained the plan before it was executed - I LOVE this planning!



They went on a bike trip in the countryside, found a fantastic old post box, took a polaroid of the letter about to go into said mailbox, put the polaroid in the letter and mailed it. So I get to see exactly where the letter was mailed!

I am kvelling, yes, but I am really delighted by this concept. What a fantastic idea, and it's not just all concept - the typed letter was witty, charming, and delicious, and I have a fantastic new correspondent in the UK now.

British post boxes

This lovely postcard came to me from the gal behind A Postcard A Day. A while back (in August, specifically) she blogged about these lovely stamps and postcards, and offered to send one to the first few people who emailed her. Lucky for me, I was one of those folks!



She included the matching stamp for this postcard, and some very cool UK knight-looking stamps as well.



Here's a closer look. How delightful, and delightfully meta!