fun postal stamps

Some good news for 2011...the United States Postal Service will be issuing a set of stamps this year featuring images from 5 Pixar films! I like most of the choices included here, though I do wish Finding Nemo and The Incredibles had made it as well. It looks like the stamps will be issued in August, so there will be some fun mail to look forward towards the end of the summer.

Speaking of stamps, I received this sweet set of Royal Mail Pooh stamps from my friend Holly recently. I'm very fond of Pooh, of course, and although I'd received a couple of them on postcards, it was nice to get the sheet as well. I just love E.H. Shepard's illustrations, and these drawings are so perfectly rendered on the simple cream-colored background. I also have this set of Wallace and Gromit Christmas stamps winging their way to me courtesy of a kind Swap-Bot member in the UK, which I'm very much looking forward to.

I really don't collect stamps in an official capacity, but those two British sets just happen to feature themes I enjoy--and I do like to use good ones on domestic mail when they're available. We don't seem to have nearly as many author stamps here in the U.S. as they do in other countries, particularly for children's lit...and I somehow missed these stamps featuring Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott books from a few years back. Where was I? What was I doing? I should have been at the post office with a fistful of cash in hand. Oh, well.

Hope your new year has gotten off to a great start, philatelic and otherwise. Cheers to another great year!