A Postcard A Day - Friday 30 May 2025 - Friday Smiles

 Hello lovely smiley peeps,

Today I look back on a week full of smiles, and of course I'd like to show you a postcard.

Now I know that we don't 'do' politics or religion, but I just had to show you this postcard because of the sensational stamps. But first the card:

It's a printed Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd) and it comes from the southern shores of Lake Erie, and was sent by someone called Natalie.

She used five gorgeous stamps on this card. They really made me smile:

On the right Thirty Mile Point on Lake Ontario. 

Wikipedia writes this:

Thirty Mile Point Light is a lighthouse on the south shore of Lake Ontario in Niagara County, New York. The lighthouse is open to the public. It gets its name because it is the point 30 miles east of the Niagara River. The lighthouse was built in 1875 of hand-carved stone. The old tower is being restored.

The next stamp features a sculpture by Alexander Calder called Portrait of a Young Man, 1945. 

From Wikipedia:

Alexander Calder was an American sculptor who revolutionized the art form with his kinetic mobiles, which move in response to air currents. 

His work is known for its dynamic embrace of chance and movement, and for bringing sculpture into a fourth dimension. Calder's early sculptures were static, known as “stabiles”, but he later incorporated motors and movement into his “mobiles".

Then there is this large stamp about San Juan, Puerto Rico. (An island in the Caribbean which belongs to the USA) It looks like a 450 year anniversary of something. Let me look that up...

In 1971, a commemorative stamp
celebrated the 450th anniversary of San Juan, the oldest continuously inhabited city in America. This stamp was based on a woodcut design and commemorated the establishment of the Caparra settlement by Juan Ponce de León in 1508. 

What you see on the stamp is part of La Fortaleza. La Fortaleza, also known as the Palacio de Santa Catalina, is the official residence and workplace of the governor of Puerto Rico.

The Christmas stamp is the next one in line:

"Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome, Saint Bernardino, and Angels," 1460/1470, by Sano di Pietro, tempera on wood,
Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art

Richard D. Sheaff designed the 1995 commemorative Christmas stamp depicting a Madonna and Child, two saints, and four angels looking down from above. The stamp is representative of the painting but crops the bottom and right sides of the image, including Mary’s delicately painted hands and Saint Bernardino standing to her right.

The last stamp. is this one:

Trusty old Wikipedia had this to say:

Concord was the ship that in 1683 took the first group of German emigrants to America. On board of the galleon were 13 Mennonite families from Krefeld with a total of 33 people. The ship is also known as the "German Mayflower". Concord set sail on July 6, 1683, in Rotterdam under Captain William Jeffries with 57 passengers. The journey took 74 days to reach Philadelphia (Germantown) on October 6, 1683 (which was declared German-American Day in 1983).

Rotterdam is my home town, and I have a painting in my living room of the little harbour, which still exists, where they set sail from. (But it is late at night and I don't have enough light to photograph it.)

This post has already become quite long, but other things that have made me smile are new plants on my little patio. I bought some colourful plants and also some herbs. I had bought a three-tier planter to put herbs in and yesterday I bought some herbs ab¡nd put them in the planter:

There is mint, oregano, basil, parsley and a pink flower, as I had 8 plants and there were 9 spaces to fill.

Now I'll go and join Annie at A Stitch In Time to enjoy more smiles.

Have a lovely weekend,

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 27 May 2025 - T for Easter?

 Good morning girls,

Immust confess, I had completely forgotten to write  my blog. I had it in my diary for tomorrow. How stupid. Does anyone else (of a certain age) get their days mixed up? I find it worrying. But let's get on with it. 

I have a postcard to show you that I received well after Easter:

It comes to me from Lithuania, which is one of the Baltic states. I can never tell them apart (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). But this is Lithuania:

The stamp reflected the subject matter of the card, more food:

The food shown on the stamp are cepelinai, or potato dumplings:

My week has been rather uneventful, other than that we had one day of torrential rains. So much so that my neighbor's courtyard flooded:

I have baked cakes. This is an apple cake as I had four 'old' apples that needed using up. they made a lovely cake:

I am still enjoying the company of my cat Ronnie (officialy Roneo):

He is fascinated by my phone:

To finish let me show you a poem by Rudyard Kipling that someone sent me:

Happy T-Day all!

Lisca

A Postcard A Day - Friday 23 May 2025 - Friday Smiles and lots of stamps

 Hello lovely girls,

The week has slipped by again and we've got to Friday in a blink.

As per usual i have a postcard with its stamps:

This card comes to me from Amanda in Chicago. 

I love these old adverts. I have lived in Italy for many years but I have never acquired a taste for Vermouth (red or white). But the advert is very inviting.

The stamps are spectacular and I will tell you something about each one, but if you are not interested, please just scroll down.

The top left stamp celebrated Roy Lichtenstein, an artist I quite like. This artwork is called: “Modern Painting I” (1966). He made art fun in a time when art was very serious. I saw several of his works at the Tate Modern in London a couple of years ago and I bought a fridge magnet:

This is called 'Mustard on White' 1963 (magna on plexiglass).

Lichtenstein was born in 1923, so 2023 was the 100th anniversary of his birth and a whole series of Forever stamps were issued. 

From the USPS website: These eye-catching new stamps honor Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997), the iconic American artist of the mid-20th-century pop art movement, which looked to popular culture for its aesthetic. Each of the five designs in the pane of 20 features one work of art by Lichtenstein.

“Standing Explosion (Red)” (1965) is a porcelain enamel on steel work that is part of the collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR.

“Modern Painting I” (1966) is an acrylic, oil and graphite pencil on canvas painting that is part of the collection of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles.

“Still Life With Crystal Bowl” (1972) is an acrylic, oil and graphite pencil on canvas painting that is part of the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

“Still Life With Goldfish” (1972) is an acrylic, oil and graphite pencil on canvas painting that is owned by a private collector.

“Portrait of a Woman” (1979) is an acrylic, oil and graphite pencil on canvas painting that is owned by a private collector.

In the left third of the pane is a photograph by Bob Adelman of Lichtenstein standing in front of one of his dot-pattern paintings. His face is framed by a model of his 1983 sculpture Brushstrokes in Flight.

The stamp at the top right features a thick billed parrot, also a stamp from 2023 in a series about endangered animals.

From the USPS website: Nearly 50 years ago, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law. Under the ESA, more than 1,670 U.S. and nearly 700 foreign species are safeguarded to increase their chances of survival. With the release of the new Endangered Species Forever stamps today, the Postal Service is celebrating not only the law, but also the people, organizations and agencies who have worked so hard to protect and save so much.

The 20 stamps showcase photographs of endangered animals found within the 50 states and American territories, as well as two North American species living near U.S. borders.

Bottom left is a beautiful Tiffany lamp:

From the USPS website: This is the 1-cent Tiffany Lamp stamp. This definitive stamp features a rendering of a Tiffany lamp by artist Lou Nolan, capturing the art nouveau movement.

In 2008, the United States Postal Service reissued the 1-cent definitive featuring artist Lou Nolan's rendering of a Tiffany lamp. Nolan evokes the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), a designer of glass, ceramics, jewelry, enamelware, and metalwork who transformed everyday objects into works of art.

Tiffany's stained-glass lampshades glow with soft, colorful light. Considered one of the greatest designers of glass in his era, Tiffany is also remembered as a leader in the art nouveau movement, a style in the visual arts that transformed design in the United States and Europe from the 1890s to World War I.

And last but not least, the Statue of Liberty bottom right:

From the Postal Museum website I got this:

The 18-cent Statue of Liberty Airmail stamp was first issued on January 11, 1974 in Hempstead, New York. The stamp was issued in sheets of fifty and measured 1.44 inches by .84 inches. The red, blue and black stamp was designed by Robert Shehorn.

OK, enough of stamps. What have I been up to? 

I seem to have been cooking a lot of nice things. Friends of mine have just had a baby. She asked rather than presents, could people please cook a meal. Well, that is a great idea! So I have cooked them home made lasagna and cottage pie (on different days of course).

When my friends Kim and Andy came on Tuesday, we had a BBQ. The first this year. (See Tuesday's blog post). 

I've also been making a cake. I'm trying to avoid sweet things and I made this cake that has no added sugar and no flour.

As you can see, I've already had a piece. It tastes good.

I found it on the Internet but here is my version of it:

Towards the end it says: 'beat until fluffy'.(that word got cut off).

Oh dear, this post has become quite long. Lets do the funnies and call it a day! (And visit Annie at A Stitch In Time for more smiles)

Have a lovely weekend!

Lisca