Postcrossing : Vol 4

Woohoo!  After eight months of Postcrossing, I have reached my century - over 100 postcards received! 

Here is my fourth book of postcards, with cards inside from Japan, Portugal, California, Russia, my first card from Romania and a surprisingly large number from the Netherlands, amongst other countries.

All in all I've now sent to 32 different countries and received from 29:

Here are all 4 books so far together:

I received some fantastic cards in this latest batch, but my very favourites were:

From the UK, a Banksy card.  You can never go wrong in my eyes with a bit of Banksy.

From California, USA (obviously :) )

I am a real sucker for this style of iconic US state postcard, I hope to collect one from all 50 states eventually


This one, from Germany, is so gorgeous and colourful and lively.  It made me smile.

 

I love this one sooooo much - First Nations art from Vancouver Airport.  (Surprisingly not from Canada, but from a chap from Manchester, England)

Another graffiti card - I'm getting a good collection of these now - this one is huuuuge, from the Netherlands.  The sender, Betty, wrote loads and loads on the back too, it's great to have lots to read as well as a purty picture on the front.

I think this image of Tibetan prayer flags in a scroll, also sent from Holland, is beautiful.







And this Edward Gorey illustration, from the USA, is just plain cool

 I'm not sure how clearly you can see this one, the card came from China, and the photo depicts ancient Chinese burial grounds, where the coffins were placed on natural "shelves" in a sheer cliff.  According to the sender, little is now known about the civilisation that these coffins belonged to.  Fascinating.

Not quite as educational, but nice all the same, a cute tattoo card from the Netherlands

Also from Holland, Super Squirrel! :D

But I have left the best card until last.

Not only is the card itself, from America, great - I love cemeteries, and this cast iron monument has a poignant story (he guards the grave of his little owner Florence, who died age 2 in 1862) - but also the sender had imprinted a hand carved stamp of herself and her husband on the back:

 

I love hand carved stamps!

When I registered the card, I checked out the sender, Jennifer's profile, which revealed a link to her blog.  Turns out she is a prolific craftswoman and, in between sewing and embroidering and bookbinding and stamp carving, she makes the most amazing jewellery.  Like this:

We started emailing to and fro and seem to have swiftly become firm buddies.  

Thank you, Postcrossing, for my new friend :)

So that's 100 cards down, here's to the next 100.....