This week I decided to look into the stamps with traditional costumes from Belgium, and to my surprise, I even found another stamp with a Dutch traditional costume. It is an Belgian airmail stamp of 1958 from a United Nations series. This series was published to commemorate the 1958 World Fair Expo in Brussels (the first one after WWII), where the first time the United Nations participated in a world fair. The UN pavilion was a blue dome with six arches symbolizing the six continents (the Americas were counted as two). Several UN organizations presented themselves: ITU, ICAO, UPU, WMO, FAO, IAEA, IBRD, IMF, GATT, ILO, UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF. This series of special UN stamps was sold as a complete series of sixteen stamps to collectors at Expo 58, the philatelic service in Brussels and at UN Headquarters in New York. The stamps could only be used on national and international mail posted at the UN pavilion. My "Dutch girl" stamp is the UNICEF one. It shows the globe with six kids from the six continents dancing around it. The Dutch girl must definitely look like a girl from Volendam and represents Europe.
But now to Belgium and its traditional costumes, and that is not easy, because not much of the traditional costumes is left. I found three stamps that could give us some idea of the traditional costumes. The first one shows a woman with her daughter and a postman from the 17th century (stamp for Stamp Day 1982); the second one shows again a woman with her daughter and a postman, but now from 1840 (stamp for Stamp Day 1975); and the third one shows a woman making lace (in two colors from the 1948 National Industries series). All three stamps show typical lace headdresses, which could be considered as typical traditional bonnets.
The last stamp is the closest I could come to a Belgian traditional costume. It shows a milk maid with her dog cart in Flanders. It is out of a series of old trades for Themabelga, the first world Stamp Exhibition for Thematical Philately in 1975. She is wearing a costume that is very similar to what lots of women in Flanders, but also in the south of The Netherlands (Zeelandic Flanders and North Brabant), were wearing with the typical large white bonnet and big shawl.
It is Wednesday again, so it's BUTTON DAY on my blog. It would be great if you could do the same; make your Wednesday a button day too. Have you seen a lovely, beautiful, stunning, crazy button or button-related thingy, or did you make something with a button / buttons, or did you even make buttons yourself, blog about it on your blog on Wednesday, and give the link here via Mister Linky at the end of this post.
Button Wednesday today is a thank you to two lovely people I met on the internet and who sent me lots of great buttons. The first one is Sandra from zsazsazsu1963 on Etsy, who told her 87 year old aunt about Button Wednesday and then got two immense Quality Street boxes filled with buttons from her, who had always sewn her own clothes. Sandra sent me some treasures out of these boxes because there were so many and because she is such s sweet girl of course ! Thanks again deer Sandra for this lovely Belgian gift; maybe you saw some of your buttons already appearing in my new natural jewelry line.
The second sweet lady is Lynn from Pennsylvania USA who I met on FaceBook. Lynn collected lots of buttons from her mother and grandmother because she liked them, but got the idea that she was not going to do anything with them. So, she decided to pack them up and send them to a button artist and she choose me as the lucky girl. All the ones from her grandmother are probably 90 years old and the ones from her mother are from 1940 - 1960. There are some real gems in this huge packet of buttons. I show you here some of her grandma's ones in detail. Thank you again dear Lynn; you are the sweetest ! Some of your buttons are already used in my new rings.
!!!!!!!!!! If you have something for The Button Wednesday, give Mister Linky your name and the link to your button post !!!!!!!!!!!!!
This week I decided to look into the stamps with traditional costumes from Belgium, and to my surprise, I even found another stamp with a Dutch traditional costume. It is an Belgian airmail stamp of 1958 from a United Nations series. This series was published to commemorate the 1958 World Fair Expo in Brussels (the first one after WWII), where the first time the United Nations participated in a world fair. The UN pavilion was a blue dome with six arches symbolizing the six continents (the Americas were counted as two). Several UN organizations presented themselves: ITU, ICAO, UPU, WMO, FAO, IAEA, IBRD, IMF, GATT, ILO, UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF. This series of special UN stamps was sold as a complete series of sixteen stamps to collectors at Expo 58, the philatelic service in Brussels and at UN Headquarters in New York. The stamps could only be used on national and international mail posted at the UN pavilion. My "Dutch girl" stamp is the UNICEF one. It shows the globe with six kids from the six continents dancing around it. The Dutch girl must definitely look like a girl from Volendam and represents Europe. 
But now to Belgium and its traditional costumes, and that is not easy, because not much of the traditional costumes is left. I found three stamps that could give us some idea of the traditional costumes. The first one shows a woman with her daughter and a postman from the 17th century (stamp for Stamp Day 1982); the second one shows again a woman with her daughter and a postman, but now from 1840 (stamp for Stamp Day 1975); and the third one shows a woman making lace (in two colors from the 1948 National Industries series). All three stamps show typical lace headdresses, which could be considered as typical traditional bonnets.
The last stamp is the closest I could come to a Belgian traditional costume. It shows a milk maid with her dog cart in Flanders. It is out of a series of old trades for Themabelga, the first world Stamp Exhibition for Thematical Philately in 1975. She is wearing a costume that is very similar to what lots of women in Flanders, but also in the south of The Netherlands (Zeelandic Flanders and North Brabant), were wearing with the typical large white bonnet and big shawl. 
