Where's my polar bear? Creating Noah's Ark in stamps ..

One of the most irritating things that happens when I'm making my stamp collages is losing the stamps! I have to be careful not to wear woolly jumpers which attract stamps getting caught in them, and then walking away I find a trail of stamps all over the house ..   And once I start sticking them in place, it's even worse as I usually get the glue on my fingers too and then I pick up even more little bits of stamps without intending to.

I'm in the middle of making a new piece, Noah's ark,  using stamps in various shades of brown to construct the ark itself, and I've sorted out a lovely collection of animals but there must be two of each species to be authentic .. and  I just KNOW I had two polar bears .. but where is the other one? 


You guessed!                      

Cat Postcards from Italy

During last year's week in Rome, we found these attractive postcards featuring cats wearing elaborate theatrical costumes.  There are possibly more than 12 different designs and these are some of my favourites:

Postcards are always popular but it was not easy to find anywhere to buy stamps - even a small post office I visited did not have any!  The easiest place to get stamps and know that the postal service will be reliable is the Vatican post office.  Other options are to buy  your stamps in a local Tabbacchi - small tobacconist shop or in a  general store,  

Newsagents and street kiosks  offered special  Swiss post stamps, but you can only post these in designated boxes which again, were  not  easy to find. (I later discovered that you can get a map of the box locations, but it was too late on this occasion).

So these beautiful cards, which are printed in Venice,  have been added to my growing  collection of Cat cards!