Verdensbilleder

The Danish word "verdensbillede" is best translated as "world view", but literally means "world picture". 
Here, I have collected various world pictures from old books.

How Homer imagined the world ca. 900 B.C. 

Illustrated by Björn Landström in his book Vägen till Indien(1964)

The Ptolemaic geocentric system was the typical world view in the middle ages. The outermost circle is the Firmament, and beyond that is the "crystal heaven" which is the home of God and "the elected ones". 

Cannot find the origins of this Danish illustration, but it is reprinted in Astronomi i billeder(1972)

Kepler's view of the world and the heavens. Also geocentric, but with the added complexity, that each sphere fits with one of the Platonic solids. Resulting in a harmony of the spheres. 

Image originally from Kepler's Mysterium Cosmographicum(1596). This reprinting from Astronomi i billeder(1972)

The expanding unverse - each white dot represents millions of galaxies.

Illustration by Antonio Petrucceli from Life's The World We Live In, Danish translation and print: Vor Underfulde Verden(1957)

The globe in full darkness. As unreal as the very first picture in this post, but much more realistic.

From Det Bedstes Store Verdensatlas(1966), which is some sort of Danish adaptation of a Reader's Digest Atlas.

The structure of a universe. Based on a simulation of the universe evolving from the big bang. The area shown in the picture is about 4 billion light years on each side, and each tiny dot of light is a galaxy. 

From Himlen set fra Jorden(2007)

Books referenced in this post. all from the local second hand shops.

Double Alice

I received two Alice in Wonderland postcards today.

This one if from the very sweet medusa242, who saw my rant about the new Danish postage prices on the postcrossing forums, and offered to send any Dane a card, expecting nothing in return.
I have made her a card though, I am just waiting for the opportunity to send it from Germany.

This one is an official postcrossing card FI-2775710 from Tiina in Finland, just happened to land in my mailbox on the same day as the one above. yay for Alice!

#346 - Mushrooms

My second Handmade RR.

From Nannie/siori

Cute origami mushrooms :) unfortunately the card got a bit of a beating in transit, Lovely stamps.

From Kibele

A bit unorthodox for a "postcard" but I love it! this wonderfully creative envelope contained a bag of stamps and stickers that I can use for making cards in the future.

From VickiKamalova

a lovely mixed media background and a mushroom fairy.

Sent Cards

For Nannie

Norwegian mushroom stamps on an illustrated forest floor. The stamps are held in place by cuts in the paper, and are easily detachable in case a collector wants them.

For Kibele

Sulfur mushrooms illustrated by N.Norvil for the book Svampe - haandbog for begyndere i svampeplukning(1943), The background is from an Alex Grey calendar print of the oil painting Dying(1990). Alex Grey is inspired by hallucinogenic substances, such as the psilocybin in "magic mushrooms".

For VickiKamalova

Marshrooms

Science guy quote

Postcard made by jenniloveshockey on Postcrossing.com. I really like the use of stamps, and it's such a great quote.

To the moon and back

DK-50699 I made this card from a Hans Scherfig painting and an illustration of the Apollo 11 mission. For a postcrosser who likes tapirs

#340 - Cinema

These cards are from my first round robin (RR) on the Prostcrossing forums. I wanted an excuse to make more cards so I joined this Handmade RR thread. RRs work like this: You join a small group agreeing on a theme, and then you send postcards with that theme to all other members in the group. The Handmade RR groups are usually 4 people, so you send 3 cards and receive 3 cards.

Sent cards

for jacqcoen(Arizona, US):

Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction. staring out of my homemade movie theater. I was going for sort of an old school cinema feel with the red and gold.

for Mosshumla(Sweden):

Charlie Chaplin (in The Gold Rush) and a real life filmstrip from the trailer of an Austrian movie called "Hotel". If you hold the card up to the light, one of the frames in the filmstrip can be seen clearly.

for VickiKamalova(Russia):

An illustrated movie poster of Danish silent film actress Asta Nielsen. I didn't do that much on this one, just framed it in film strip (colored black to look more like film strip, the real color on the edges is an ugly see-through brownish color). Those white lines going around are the soundtracks :D

Received cards

from jacqcoen(Arizona, US):

Picture is not so good because of reflections in the lamination. But great card based on her latest trip to the movies with her kids :D I also loved the stamps

from VickiKamalova(Russia):

Audrey Hepburn with a very colorful and fun background. I really like the technique Vicki has used to make this, And it made it through the post with no damage at all. (I put all my cards in envelopes because I was scared they'd fall apart)

 from Mosshumla(Sweden):

I love this card! it's inspired by the 1958 movie version of The Fly. The spider is beautiful, I love how its legs are hugging the back of the card. The web is made of thread (must have been difficult to glue on!) and that little face on the fly is both scary and hilarious. The stamps are really nice too.

I put this card on the wall in my office. I work with spiders, and I think this will be the start of a little exhibition of spider related postcards.

Postcrossing Stamp Swap

This was my fist stamp swap on the postcrossing forums, and I'm really glad I did it. Finding that beautiful envelope with the Japanese stamps in my mailbox was just such a nice experience.

50 used Danish stamps for Yuki - ca. 1996-2013

+ homemade card from Danish and Swedish definitives

50 used German stamps from Yuki

+ beautiful envelope and card