Dragons!

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is dragons and saints. I loved this set that USPS issued in 2018. The stamps have orange metallic elements that are much better to appreciate in person. 

For more stamps on today's themes, visit See it on a Postcard.

Leaves

 Today's Sunday Stamps prompt is Trees and Leaves.

I chose this 5c stamp from Germany, which arrived by way of postcrossing.

The water lily stamp has leaves (lily pads), and then there's the petals on the flower. Petals are modified leaves, and the petals on the stamp are made of paper, which is (mostly) made from trees. A complicated route to today's theme! I love this new (since 2022) definitive set from Germany featuring all things related to letter writing turned into all sorts of landscape features.

To see more stamps with leaves and trees as themes, head over to See it on a Postcard.

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I have a bonus eclipse stamp to add to last week's post!

Violet S very kindly sent me the amazing Canadian eclipse stamp which arrived yesterday - I love it, thank you so much!

You can see here that there are is also a hidden effect on the stamp.

Sent on the back of sun over Niagara Falls - this matches our weekend which is very sunny.

And if you'd like to see my bonus eclipse post where I held the 2017 stamps over a hot stove to get them to change color, it's here.

Total eclipse

 Yesterday's post was eclipse and sun related. I didn't have a picture of the 2017 eclipse stamps when heated, so here is one I took last night. 

And here is an eclipse stamp I forgot I had received from Taiwan.

If you're going to experience the totality, I hope you have clear skies! 

The sun

 Or at least part of it on the eclipse stamp issued in 2017. If you heat the stamp it will reveal the moon blocking out most of the sun. I received and sent this stamp a few times. 

There's also a sun on one of the woodland animal stamps, as well as on the pictorial postmark (credit to CJ for the photo). 

And finally, some suns sent to Eva a while ago. 

For more sun and eclipse related stamps, check out the links at See it on a Postcard.

Flowers

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is related to Easter - chocolate, bunnies, flowers and churches.

Here's a stamp from Japan featuring the Japanese primrose

And a winterling (winter aconite, a member of the buttercup family) from Germany

The latter was accompanied by a happy snail

And arrived on this nice postcard

For more stamps with these themes, head over to See it on a Postcard, and if you celebrate, have a happy Easter.

Uniform

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is uniform, and recently I received the stamp commemorating 100 the centenary. of the end of World War I that was issued in 2018.

It arrived on this lovely exchange envelope.

For links to more uniforms on stamps, visit See it on a Postcard

A green leap

 An excellent frog stamp from the Netherlands, part of the beautiful 'Experience Nature' series

Sent on this leap year postcard

With a 29 Feb postmark!

Thanks to Heleen!

Explore the links for today's Sunday Stamps theme of green, snakes, or Irish stamps at See it on a Postcard

Elvis

 The first Elvis stamp and the second Elvis stamp. I think I read that the 29c issue is one of the all time best selling USPS stamps.

Campanula persicifolia

 Also known as the peach-leaved bellflower, seen on this Russian stamp from 2019.

For more stamps with today's Sunday Stamps theme of flowers, visit See it on a Postcard.

Käpt'n Blaubär

Käpt'n Blaubär is a blue-furred bear from a German children's TV show. His name also sounds similar to blueberry in German. Issued in 2023, this is part of a series titled "Heroes of Childhood". For more on this fun bear, check out the wikipedia page.

For more stamps with today's Sunday Stamps theme of illustrations, explore the links at See it on a Postcard.

Blue skies and Bluenose

 Two Canadian stamps on the same postcard for this week's Sunday Stamps theme: blue.

The Bluenose stamp celebrates 100 years since this famous yacht was built in Nova Scotia in 1921 as both a fishing and racing vessel. For more on this interesting vessel here is a link to its Wikipedia page. There is also an image of a previous Canadian stamp (coincidentally all blue) featuring the Bluenose.

Apologies for the blurriness of the stamp on the left, it is the 2018 Canada Post Community Foundation semipostal stamp. A clearer image:

Not stamp related, however going back through photos for today's stamps I found this blue image  - jellyfish at Newport Aquarium in Kentucky.

For more blue stamps check out the links at See it on a Postcard.

Chinese Calligraphy

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is calligraphy, and I always admire beautifully drawn Chinese characters (also called logographs).

Thanks to Fafa, I have this wonderful Year of the Dragon mini-sheet to share.

For links to more calligraphy on stamps, head over to See it on a Postcard.

Year of the Dragon

 Thanks to fafa for wonderful dragon mail

Lighthouse

 Today's theme for Sunday Stamps is lighthouses, and look what landed just yesterday from Heleen! And check out the date on the postmark.

For more links to lighthouse stamps visit See it on a Postcard

Trees

 The theme for this week's Sunday Stamps is trees.

The Christmas tree is still up (probably going to come down at Candlemas), so here's one of last years Snow Globe stamps with a Christmas tree inside, a bit obscured by the postmark, which festively has a matching tree inside a snow globe.

And just in from Fabienne, this lovely stamp celebrating the tenth anniversary of France's Patronage Law, which concerns philanthropy, and philanthropic organizations and associations.

For more links to trees on stamps check out the links at See it on a Postcard.

Whenever I was doing nothing

 A very interesting postcard received from Yuziye via Postcrossing sharing a Chinese saying, "Eat and wait for death." Glad my parents didn't know Chinese, I would probably have been on the receiving end of this saying a few times!!

This is my first time linking up for Thursday Postcard Hunt - this week's theme is inspirational thoughts/funny sayings.

Explore more postcards with this theme by visiting See it on a Postcard.

José de Sousa Saramago

 The theme for today's Sunday Stamps is writers, and fortuitously a letter from Eva arrived yesterday with a stamp celebrating the centenary of the birth of José de Sousa Saramago (1923-2010), who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1998.

José Saramago was a Portugese writer who left Portugal in 1992 after the government ordered one of his works, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, be removed from being considered for the Aristeion Prize.

He then lived in exile in Lanzeroti (The Canary Islands, Spain) until his death.

You can read more about the stamp from Correos here. A link to his English wikipedia page is here.

Have you read any of his work? If so, do you have a recommendation for which one to start with?

For more links to stamps on writers, visit SeeItOnAPostcard.

Postage rates go up tomorrow

 It's that time of year - USPS rates increase tomorrow, so if you want to save money today's your last day to buy stamps at the current rate. If you use the largest seller of stamps in the US, the USPS online shop, you only have until 11pm eastern as they'll be performing upgrades to the system.

Rate changes:

First class forever stamp - up 2c to 68c

Postcards within the US - up 2 c to 53c

International postcards and letters up to 1 oz - up 5c to $1.55

Dear Eduardo

 Do you remember the 'Who is Eduardo Munez?' project?

Did you send in an envelope?

You can watch this short film titled 'Dear Eduardo' for free on youtube now!

De Hef Railway Bridge

 Today's Sunday Stamps theme is bridges.

Heleen sent me this stamp featuring De Hef railway bridge in Rotterdam. Built in 1927, De Hef means 'the lift', and its official name is Koningshaven Bridge. There were plans to demolish the bridge in 1993, however the protest against it by local residents was heeded. The bridge gained international notoriety in 2022 when there was a proposal to dismantle it to allow Jeff Bezos' (billionaire owner of Amazon) yacht to reach open water via the Koningshaven channel. Protests once again won the day, and the bridge was untouched.

This stamp was issued in 2014 as part of a series that celebrated 175 years of Dutch railways.

For more links to bridges on stamps, check out the links at SeeItOnAPostcard.

Sunday stamps - places of worship

 For today's theme, I am sharing a single stamp from France thanks to Fafa.

The church, Église Saint-Pierre (St Peter's church) in Riga, Latvia with snow. Construction began in 1209, and you can access the Wikipedia page for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter%27s_Church,_Riga

Go to Sunday Stamps for more links on today's theme. https://seeitonapostcard.blogspot.com

Lucky Lemonpig

 I hope that Momo the lemon pig will bring good fortune this year to all our postal endeavors.

Happy New Year!

 Welcome to 2024! 

This beautiful card is from CJ (check her blog out) - thank you! A pair of cardinals usually nests in or adjacent to the back yard, so these are special birds to me. I hope they bring us all the best of luck in the coming year.