Happy 6th Birthday, Postcrossing!

Hello friends!

Having a three-full days weekend is really nice, but it makes my Tuesday feel like Monday! Alas, that is great news knowing I only have to work four short days this week. Nevertheless, time seems to be flying! Don't you think?

This morning, I checked in on one my Postcrossing accounts (because I have two! Yikes!) and read about their approaching 6th birthday, how fun! The site administrator, Paulo Magalhaes is inviting the members to submit photos of themselves holding postcards they are about to mail out which they will use and compile in a video montage like they have done before that I regretfully missed. Well here's my chance and to all of you who are part of this wonderful project, we just might be featured in the video if not win these goodies as well:

The World's Smallest Post Service by Lea Redmond of Leaf Cutter Designs.

Two Christmases ago I got my cousin, Mary Kris, two of my pen pals and my husband, Dan one each of this awesome mail product from Ms. Redmond. Her customer service was awesome (still is, I'm sure!) and all her products unique. I am happy to see her products gracing Amazon now as well as other online gift shops. It's a lovely surprise enough to see something special in the mailbox and having the letters and packages come in miniature sizes is even more amazing! So this kit would make a wonderful addition to any letter-writer's desk!

Included in the kit:
1 0.2mm fine-tipped micron writing pen
40 mini writing sheets
40 mini envelopes
60 envelope seals
4 mini gift boxes
4 sheets Kraft wrapping paper
4 sheets miniature "newspaper" packing paper
44 inches twine
40 postage stamps
32 special delivery stickers
Instruction sheet


Mail Carriers Set by Playmobil.

These Mail Carriers are well loved by Postcrossers across the globe including myself. We have come to know them on first name basis, Paulo and Ana. Honestly, I am envious of the two, they have gone to more places that I wished I've traveled to! You can read more about their fun trips here.

So here's me with my Sad Queen postcards and behind me are my wall of cards that are mostly available on Letter Parade the shop. I'm crossing my fingers I'll be part of the video, at least :0)

And in the subject of postcards, I am embarrassed to admit that I have been so out of the loop! Reading Missive Maven's blog, I came across Walltype, SendSomething.net and Swap-bot, let me explore these awesome recommendations more then maybe I can blog about each in the near future!

Happy writing!

Cindy Gonzales - Kujat

Letter Parade -UPDATE

Hello friends!

Happy 4th of July to all you Americans and to my husband who has yet to wake up and decide what to do today to celebrate his freedom and love for his country. To those of you who are wondering why I'm going to have to sit this one out or be a wallflower, that's because I am not American. I do love America, don't get me wrong. And very soon I, too will be American citizen, until then I will pour damn good wine and give a toast to you America!

I know it's been a while since my last post, this seems to be the norm with me nowadays! I am currently juggling several projects here and there but I'm happy to say, letter-writing and postcard-sending have not been put on hold. Nobody can possibly deny me the joy of this hobby!

I must admit, I have been tempted many times to close my Etsy shop, but alas, the SAD QUEEN rescued me and though struggling with time, I pressed on. To those who have no clue what my Sad Queen project is all about, read my previous entry here. It's a fun monthly design commitment for me and have gotten lots of wonderful feedback from my friends at Postcard Exchange and the folks at Postcrossing!

Here are some of the new products you can find on my shop:

The Pin-up Floral Envelope Sealers. 
I love the pin-up girls, they are one of the wonderful reminders of how fun my last creative job was despite how brief the contract ended. These girls are forever embedded on my creative genes and you will see them in a lot of my works and paper goods at Letter Parade.

 The Sad Queen postcard - JUNE 

This has been posted late, for which I had not found the time to blog about.

Sober - a love quote postcard.

From my 'Old Musings' archive way back that I finally was able to recreate with a new design for a postcard. Again, I think postcard is such a versatile medium in sharing art. It makes me happy thinking this little darling is gracing somebody's mailbox and greeted with a smile. What a heart-warming transaction!

Missing - a love quote postcard

Another one from my 'Old Musings' archive. Writing short quotes is a fun skill I've gotten from my grandma 'Vencia who was exceptionally talented and an amazing music teacher who then passed it on to my Dad. It was fun to tell their writings apart growing up as they both had very different styles.

So these are what's new and up about Letter Parade. I hope you like the new stuff! If you have more time to kill today, and are in the mood for reading more about paper products, I suggest you head over to Missive Maven's blog who did a wonderful stationery compilation yesterday.

Have an amazing JULY everybody!

Happy writing!

Cindy Gonzales - Kujat

The Sad Queen Postcard Series

Hi friends!

Whoa! I got sidetracked there for a while. But yes, oh yes my 2011 is going great, thank you! I hope the same goes for you!

Much apologies for the long absence. What? Three months it's been. Let's see, my day job well, I can't complain and music continues to play, louder it seems... my Etsy shop, however, I would quote a good friend and fellow Etsyian Jessica of A Cup of Green Ginger that "you get out of it what you put into it." Though it hasn't been too much effort put in for mine, recently, I've added a new series of Postcards called 'The Sad Queen' and have circulated a handful of the February and March series to newfound friends via this awesome facebook group Postcard Exchange, and of course via Postcrossing. I am happy to report I've had several requests for swaps (postcards) along with "favorite" clicks and have sold some, too.

Let me explain the concept behind the Sad Queen postcard series. I have to admit, I am all over postcards now, I used to be just crazy about letters but little did I know then that these two come hand-in-hand. Well, throw in stamps, too, but I'm still getting there. And of course, I've slowly been exposed to different types of postcards, and to my surprise, there are hundreds and hundreds! No wonder they bring so much joy to postcard enthusiasts and collectors alike. So, I was particularly fond of postcard books, literally, a book a size of a postcard that contains pages and pages of postcards that you can tear and mail out. What a wonderful idea! I married that to an excuse to create something at the start of the year, and what products would spring up to mind but calendars? Though too late to come up with one now, I decided to produce one postcard every month until I have a full twelve enough to compile into a postcard book that will also serve as a calendar. So this is my task at hand.

The story of the Sad Queen herself is an ongoing one. I progress into the story as I go from month to month and what better way to start but the month of Love, February, when the sad Queen hits her all-time low.

Well, with all that being said, I present to you The Sad Queen February, March and April.

These, along with lots of new stuff since my last blog entry can be found at my Etsy shop. And the 10% discount offer exclusive for you still stands just use this code upon checkout LPARADEFRNDS10!

Thanks for reading and happy writing!!!

Cindy Gonzales-Kujat

5 000 000 Postcards!!!

I'd like to congratulate Postcrossing and its wonderful team led by Paulo Magalhaes for reaching the 5 million mark of postcards sent through members of Postcrossing since they started this wonderful project in 2005.

A couple of days ago I tried my luck at guessing the countries (or combination of) the 5 millionth postcard will be sent from/to. My guess was USA to PHILIPPINES and there were 871 guesses! The winner of the right guess wins a surprise from Postcrossing team and guess what? Nobody guessed the right combo. So what about this 5 millionth postcard?

Here it is, sent by member Elefantus (who's been a member for 3 years and has sent over 2,116 postcards around the world!) in Italy to Ployploy (is a newbie like me and member for 29 days and this 5 millionth postcard is only his 4th received!) in Thailand. Elefantus and Ployploy will get the prize instead since nobody guessed it right!

Congratulations Postcrossing!!! Congratulations to Elefantus and Ployploy!

And here is the previous 4 millionth postcard:

Happy postcrossing!!

Cindy Gonzales-Kujat

Bad Postcards

If you haven't joined Postcrossing yet, it would probably be best if you skipped this entry so as not to inspire you to send out the worst postcard! On the bright side, if you do get one, instead of thinking "what a waste of stamp," have a laugh and share some! Because there is a blogsite dedicated to bad postcards you can upload. And yes, it is literally called Bad Postcards. So next time you need a chuckle, you know where to go online.

http://bad-postcards.tumblr.com/

Here are some of the postcards you will find at the site:

Enter the World of Postcard Cycling

This is such an exciting time for us who are into writing letters and are also into sharing/sending postcards, I think they go together! I find myself ending my travels at a souvenir shop securing a good number of postcards to send out to my penpals and they in turn send me some from the beautiful places they've gone to, or from their own beautiful country. I myself have not really caught on collecting postcards but I do know some people who do, I had no idea how this trend has picked up on 211 countries until I came across Postcrossing.com. This might just start my own postcard collection!

The current stat when I joined is:

198,328 members
211 countries
241 postcards/hour


4,846,190 postcards received


168,549 postcards traveling


26,584,227,484 km traveled


663,361 laps around the world
 
Amazing!

Signing up is free, so of course, I jumped in on what this is all about and discovered that it's another great way to expand your list of pen friends. Initially, you'd be given five random addresses from around the world to send your first five postcards to. After which your turn to receive five more will come. You can prolong the communication if you wished to as information about the receiver is also provided, that way you know if you have similar interests and can keep writing.

Their blog is fun to read as well, it features some of the "postcrossers" and I've just read about this one woman who has over 13,000 postcards in her collection even before she joined www.postcrossing.com!
Whew!

Postcrossing is somewhat a postal version of Facebook, with all your privacy intact. This is a wonderful way to bring people from all over the world closer. Heck, if I knew (or, exchanged postcards and letters with) five people in The Netherlands or ten in France, I'd go and book my flight already! This might be looking at it the extreme way, but somehow, if there is such personal communication between citizens of every country to the next, we can almost be absolutely sure we are generating our own share of peace to the world, though one postcard or letter at a time. :)

Join Postcrossing now!

Happy writing!

Cindy Gonzales-Kujat