Coming soon.....

I have soooo many cards that need to be scanned & item photos to be uploaded....will try & update soon!

Another swap from Animismi

I received a wonderful set of 4 Marimekko Unikko notebooks, cute teddy bear stationary set, & LOTS of Finnish chocolates today from Animismi (Laura in Finland)



This is my second swap with Laura. She's great!
I'm hoping to do a third swap with her soon!

Tags: Hello Kitty & What I always wanted.....

Some wonderful HK items from Fadanothai (Valerie in Thailand)
Check out the pretty Thailand postcards!


Diddl "K" keyring from Solecito (Stasa in Slovenia) from the "What I always wanted...tag" - Thank you! "K" is for my daughter, Kayla!

Valentine's & Private Swaps

I received these wonderful items in the Valentine's swap from icitaiwan (Andrea in Taiwan)

I love the cute bagel stationary & piggy notes!

I did a private swap with Marjol (Netherlands) for a cute Polar Bear stationary set & Miffy pin. I also love the tulip card she enclosed!


And just for fun - here's a picture of my growing stationary collection!

I collect everything from letter sets to memo pads & sticky notes!

Update coming soon

It's been awhile since I last updated! Will post photos of items I have received for February soon!!!

This week's mail

I've been quite busy this week to do daily updates. Anyway here's what I found in my mailbox this week:

2 TAGS

-Christmas Tag from nedra (Onti in Finland)
Finnish greeting: "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year"


-Valentine's Tag from chimoy (Martha in Florida, USA)


Private Swap from Renegade_Cavalcade (Marie in Canada)

Marie picked up this card during her visit to the Philippines over the holidays. The card shows Magellen's shrine, cross, & the Lapu-Lapu statue in Cebu, Philippines. I'm so happy to receive this card, because I visited these sites last August when I was in the Philippines with my family.

And here is the 2nd batch of Birthday wishes for my daughter!
Special thanks to:
-huppu68 (Kirsi in Finland)
-Nowaglas (Jocelyn in New Mexico, USA)
-Margreet (Margreet in the Netherlands)
-Chimoy (Martha in Floriday, USA)
-pirittav (Piritta in Finland)
-AlliKat (Alli in Canada)
-Kevin2002 (Monique in The Netherlands)

Sad post.....damaged card!

Here is another card I received today sent from one of my PC-pals in Canada. It appears to have suffered quite a bit during its journey. It arrived in a plastic sleeve from the US Postal Service. Looks as if one of the USPS sorting machines got hungry!



Here you can see the extent of the damage - a kind postal worker was able to recover all the pieces & tape it back together!

*addresses blacked out for privacy*

The poor card - it's unfortunate, but these things happen.

At least it arrived! I have 2 officials currently stuck traveling that I am worrying about!

1st Official from Iceland

IS-1416


View of Dettifoss (Iceland) - the largest waterfall (44m) in Europe.

At first glance I thought it was a view of an avalanche! Wow...so scary! I can't imagine how powerful this waterfall is!

More birthday cards for my daughter!

Here is the stack of birthday cards I have received for my daughter this week.

Many thanks to the following kind postcrossers:
-Orphan1965 (Annie in Florida, USA)
-Doumik (Dominique in France)
-nane85 (Christiane in Germany)
-Ghobi (Sarah in South Germany)
-Violanie59 (Violet in Germany)
-Jaid332 (Samantha in Canada)



My daughter's birthday won't be for at least a few more weeks!! I'm holding all the cards until then so no peeking beforehand!!! ;-P I am expecting to receive nearly 25 cards total! WOW!

We will have lots of "thank you" cards to prepare in the coming weeks!

New Penpal & new card from Monica

I received replies from 2 snail-mail pals this week!!!

Another nice viewcard from Monica in Norway



The first letter from my new penpal Sanne in Denmark (she is also my first & only penpal from Denmark!)



I love the Diddl stationary she used!! I wish I could find Diddl here in the states!!!

Anyway I have been so busy with classes & family activities these last two weeks to scan & post everything I have received these last few days....but I think I'm all caught up now.

I will send replies to my snail-mail pals soon! I'm also in the middle of preparing 2 swaps (Birthday swap with Wendy for my daughter) & Valentine's Swap for **SURPRISE**) I hope to have everything mailed out soon!!!

Trades from Animismi & Kisse

Here some other items I received yesterday through trades with other postcrossers.

I<3U Bears from Animismi (Laura in Finland)


Moomin card (MY VERY FIRST!) also from Animismi


Pretty stationary & matching envelopes from Kissa (Kaisa in Finland)


Also some Moomin pops (also from Kissa)


She also sent me a small box of Moomin candies, but I've already eaten them before I can take a picture! :D

I'm so fascinated by the Moomins! I see another collection in my future!!!

Tag: 3+ Stamps from Sanna (Talas) in Finland

I received this tag yesterday. More Finnish stamps for my collection!



The pretty flower postcard the stamps are attached to:

Hello Kitty Cards!!

I also received some Hello Kitty cards yesterday! I love them! I received these via private swap with Little_Flower in Japan!

Hello Kitty & Dear Daniel 2007


Charmy Kitty


HK in traditional Japanese dress


These are from 2001
HK w/ snake & cherry blossoms (?)....HK & DD ice skating



I only requested for 2 cards.......but she sent me 5!! What a generous postcrosser! I am sending her a little something extra for her kindness.

Birthday cards for my daughter

About a week ago, I posted a thread requesting birthday cards for my daughter & in return we would send out handmade cards or CA postcards to "thank" postcrossers who send my daughter cards.

I got such an overwhelming response! So far we are expecting cards from 22 kind postcrossers! Wow! She will be so excited! Her birthday isn't until mid-February, but I decided to make a request early to allow time for mailing overseas.

At any rate...I've already received 3 cards in the mail addressed to my daughter! :-D I am holding onto them until it gets closer to her birthday....so you will have to wait to see scans of those! As for the handmade "thank you" cards......because we got such a huge response for these.....we will start preparing those as early as this weekend. I will try & scan those as well before I mail them to their recipients so I can share them here with you!

No mail today.....US holiday

The PO is closed here in the US due to holiday (Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday). No mail delivery = no new postcards.

Today I am preparing a bunch of cards for officials & private swaps.....so I will be mailing out a huge batch tomorrow. I will also be picking up some of the new LOVE: KISSES stamps! I've also signed up for a few swaps this month.....including a Valentine's Swap & Birthday Swap (for my duaghter)....so I'll be busy preparing those this week as well.

Tag: Offer items w/ theme

Mail has been slow all week :P

Today I received a tag from Rraisa in Finland- Offer items w/theme - I chose.....Hello Kitty theme, of course! She sent me a nice HK notebook (notice the island theme!) & cute HK hairclips from H&M! Which reminds me....they are building the 1st H&M here in Orange County to open in the Spring! I can't wait!

First Italy Official

Today I received a nice card of the Scala Theatre in Milano, Italy. This is my first official card from Italy.

IT-2812

First Official Card for the New Year!

Today I received my first officials for 2007! One of them is from.....THAILAND!! This is my first official from Thailand - so pretty! Another country on my list of places to visit.

TH-263


And another from New Zealand.....the land of the KIWIS!
Such an odd-looking bird, yet I find it so cute!
NZ-10021

Flat Travelers Arrive!

My daughter & I signed up to participate in a Flat Traveler Exchange. Today, 2 Flat Travelers arrived in our mailbox! One is from a family in China (mingzhuxia) & the other is from my penpal in the Netherlands (Kevin2002) who I met on Postcrossing!

Flats arrive in our mail (addresses blacked our for privacy):


So we will be hosting our little guests for a couple weeks & show them around Orange County. Of course we have 2 Flat Travelers of our own on their way to visit families in China & The Netherlands for a little tour of their own! I'll try & post updates on how this project is going. For more information about this project go to FLAT TRAVELER EXCHANGE or check out YAHOO GROUPS: FLAT TRAVELERS

And here is a postcard that was included with the Netherlands Flat Traveler:


I also received a nice Christmas card from my penpal, Kevin2002, the same day:

Chinese New Year

A Chinese New Year card from YaYa in Taiwan

Inside the card:


YaYa writes: "Happy Chinese New Year! Red & gold are the main colors of Chinese New Year. The Chinese think that those two colors can bring you good luck. I wish you all the best in 2007! -YaYa"

How nice! Chinese New Year isn't until February, but it's New Years here in the states!

Happy New Year!

It's 2007! Where did 2006 go? Well since there is no mail delivery today here in the states I thought I would share some of the beautiful stamps that are affixed to the postcards that I have received. I have found another beauty in snail mail.....the art of the stamp!

I have to say that Finland has some really pretty stamps!



And here I have a German stamp garden:


Well that's it for now!!