Sandbook

Have you heard of Sandbook.net? For anyone who is a self-proclaimed ultimate penpaller, this is the place to be!


Right now they're giving out prizes to 3 lucky winners: a stationery set, a notebook, or stamps. I'm hoping for the stamps! I think it would be amazing to see all of the places that the stamps have come from and how different they look. Here's a photo of the prize:

It's easy! Just go to www.sandbook.net/ to leave a comment about which prize(s) you would like to be entered for. You get one entry. Then you can win another entry by posting on Facebook     (www.facebook.com/sandbooknet) or Twitter (www.twitter.com/sandbook) with a link back to Sandbook. Finally, win a 3rd entry by blogging about the contest, like I'm doing. 

Sandbook is the place to go to find new penpals, lost penpals, tips for writing, penpal ideas, learning about different places around the world, and they even put out a free monthly digital newsletter. You can nominate you and your penpal for Penpal of the Month (click here to nominate your penpal) like I did. Anja and I won! Here is my entry (click here for the full newsletter), and next month, a short interview about each of us will be in the newsletter.

Early June 2011 Postcards

Well, I'm a bit behind on my Postcrossing sending and receiving and scanning and registering because of the broken computer, so it's time to play a bit of catch-up.

From Amy from Taiwan who says on her postcard, "A happy mind attracts good fortune; good fortune attracts good blessing."

From Clair in Scotland. The card is from a walk she completed last year called the West Highland Way.

www.kidscraftandchaos.com

From Geert who lives in Coevorden, The Netherlands near the German border

From Suvi in Jyvaskyla, Finland who is a photographer. What a lucky girl to photograph such a beautiful place!

From Megan in Florida who says, "Remember, if you ever have a bad day, a postcard is on the way." Cute!

From Nina in Dusseldorf, Germany....a new penpal in the works

To Jun Lin in China....a very gruesome and sad picture, I know, but interesting nonetheless. It is a dead Confederate near Fredericksburg in May 1863.

To Joanna in Plock, Poland....Indira Gandi who was the leader of the world's largest democracy in 1966.

To Tuula in Helsinki, Finland...Army kitchen & cooks from 1864

To Grazia in Italy...Rosa Parks, American civil rights activist

To Rita in Vietnam, who is actually from Canada...Members of Co. B, US Engineer Battalion in August 1864

To the Timmer Family in Viborg, South Dakota...Valentina Tereshkova (b. 1937), Russian cosmonaut who became the first woman in space on June 16, 1963. She still holds the world record for the longest time spent in space by a woman...over 70 hours!

To Goncalo in Portugal who collects postcards of stadiums...my favorite stadium, The University of Notre Dame

To Zih-Cian in Taiwan...Dorothea Dix, American social reformer

Postcrossing Mid-May 2011

 I've been lazy this month...just sending out more of the postcards I made from my photo at Parkview Field. Sent to Tuulikki in Finland, Galina in Belarus, Kurt in Germany, & Yvette in The Netherlands.

To Anonymous in Algeria. The last one I sent was never registered in Postcrossing and had expired, so I'm resending a new one.

To Little Elina in Finland. Another case of a missing postcard becoming expired, so I'm sending Honest Abe this time and hoping it makes its way to Elina.

From Tonya in Chicago, who recently visited the lovely city of Paris

 To Ron in Long Beach, CA

A photo of Jefferson Davis

To Natalia in Russia

A photo of Dorothy Thompson, American journalist

To Aiko in Japan

A photo of Ulysses S. Grant

Happy Postcrossing!

Early May 2011 Postcards

From Willem in Wezep who likes to visit Amsterdam several times a year. He also included lovely stamps on the back.

From Miledi in Russia. Also sent using very interesting stamps and the writing is in Russian on the back.

From Kari in Ogden, Utah. She says that a lot of movies are shot there.

From Olga in Kiev, Ukraine: a picture of a Ukranian village as it was before the 20th century

To K. Maria in Leipzig Germany

To Ayumi in Tokyo, Japan
A picture of Julia Morgan, American architect who is famous for her design of William Randolph Hearst's castle at San Simeon, California

To Vanessa in Nanjing, China
A photo of Blanche LaMont, frontier schoolminstress, with her school & students at Hecla, Montana, in 1893.
(I like the little kid with the hat in the front row...so cute!)

To Tanya in Minsk, Belarus, who came up with the idea of asking postcard senders to include their favorite drink recipe (mine is the cotton candy martini!)
A picture of Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter and international celebrity

To Bianca in Eindhoven, The Netherlands
A picture of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, American labor organizer

To Fatma in Jakarta, Indonesia
A boys' gym class at Walter R. Dolan Jr. High School, Connecticut, in April 1952

Thank you to all of the wonderful folks who sent me such nice postcards!

Postcards - Mid April 2011

Oh, happy mail time!

I wasn't sure if I should post this on my blog...it's so scandalously saucy. But what a neat card, and I love the Chinese writing and the little pictures on the sides.

From Stella in China

 Doesn't Finland look just amazing? I watch it on PBS when they have cooking in Finland shows.

Thanks, Virpi from Helsinki, Finland!

Mmmm! I think my stomach is growling about these delicious apple slices in fried dough, eaten with cinnamon/sugar and vanilla sauce. 

From my newest pen friend, Franziska in Steffisburg, Switzerland. 

 Another wonderful postcard from Franziska She said that she sent it because it matches my blog and shows tulips from her trip to Holland. She takes all of the beautiful photos on her postcards. You're the best, Francizka!

 This is a neat little postcard that shows a tea plantation in Cameron Highlands, Pahang

From Madeline in Kapit, Malaysia

 Last but most certainly not least, a terrific black and white postcard of winter in Amsterdam. I love black and white pictures, and I love pictures of villages and towns and cities, so this is one of my favorites.

From Christine in Oregon



Early April Postcards

Happy Mail Time!

A postcard from my dear friend from Germany, Anja.  She traveled to Dresden recently and was sweet enough to send me a postcard. She said that the architecture was amazing and that there are angels on every building. Doesn't Dresden look like a lovely place?

Oh, happy day! Another postcard from Germany, this time from Janett in Kirchdorf.  This postcard will be very helpful to me in my Germany geography studies.

 I get many postcards from The Netherlands, and I really can't complain about it, because the people there always send the nicest cards. This one, according to Babelfish (which is not always a reputable source), says "Much kind," although other places I researched said "Much love." Either way, it's a pretty little card Monique in Ubrecht in The Netherlands.

I know you're thinking, "Woah, woah, woah! Keep it PG!" Well, I think it's a neat card, and Abigail from New Jersey was very sweet to send it. I love all of the colors, and I love picnics, and I love this card. 

This is a photo I took of our local baseball field, and I was so proud when I took this picture and had it made into postcards...and then I found out that everyone else in town has taken the exact same photo. Well, no matter...I sent it to Karol in Poland anyhow.

To Karen in Salt Lake City, Utah.

A picture of Abigail Adams, whose detailed letters are a vivid source of social history.

To Nastya in Russia

This is from my postcard book "America Works Out," and is a picture of "high school boys growing physically fit through exercise" at Benjamin Franklin High School in New York in 1942.

To Margarita in Valencia, Spain

A picture of Harriet Tubman, American abolitionist who became the underground railroad's most famous "conductor" and was known as the "Moses of her people."

I enjoy all of the interesting and adorable postcards that people around the world send to me, & and I love to read what they all have to say. I hope some day to receive postcards from a few other places that I have not heard from yet: Ireland, Scotland, England, Australia, France, Italy, and many countries in South America.

Happy Postcrossing!

Swiss Doggies

Many of you know how much I enjoy sending and receiving postcards through Postcrossing.com, and part of the reason is that I meet so many amazing people. For example, meet Franziska who lives in Switzerland. We have many shared interests, such as photography, puppies, penpalling, reading, postcards, so we have decided to stay in contact. She has a website called Swiss Doggies, and her little puppies have the most wonderful life. They live in the beautiful Swiss mountains and look so happy playing in the snow and running about. I asked Foo Foo if she wanted to be a Swiss Doggy, and I think she said yes! Well, I don't blame her.

Click here for Franziska's website.