We have had a lot of fun opening up our new Etsy Shop! I found some great tutorials from Renae Christene on YouTube. Our shop is called Vintage Post & Paper and it features authentic vintage ephemera with envelopes and postcards postmarked from the late 1800's to the early 1900's. I even managed to figure out how to add the Etsy mini to the side of my blog here. Woo hoo! Feel free to click on it and visit my shop!
I
have a few from our vintage collection that I plan to alter, including this
envelope with the two-cent stamp from the 1930's. I was embroidering on
it when I realized it wanted to become an art tag! Today's theme over at
Tag Tuesday is "text" and I can only imagine the text that was on the vintage letter this envelope once held.
I have seen vintage ephemera in a wide variety of altered art, mixed-media, embroidery pieces, framed pieces, and even scrapbook pages.
It was fun to make this unique 80-year-old envelope into an art tag.
I actually found some envelopes in the collection that were from the year my mother was born, and those are now special to me. I plan to find a way to use them with mother's photo - I don't know if it will be a scrapbook page or an art piece. I usually find out after I start working on it.
We will continue to add these postmarked vintage envelopes and postcards to our shop as we go through the collection. Our tagline is, "A tale of mail carried long ago." I love that, because all vintage mail tells a story. And let's face it, when's the last time you wrote and mailed a real letter to someone? A personal letter. (let's think Jane Austen here--someone writing about the joy of buying cake.)
Real mail is becoming rare. It's truly special to see it live a new life.
Happy Tuesday!
Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch
I'm looking at a pile of scraps - snipped out from beautiful papers that I've made envelopes with, scrapbook pages, tags and cards. It's fun to whip up little meaningful cards, just with my scraps!
Today's little card:
The most import thing on this card is a vintage button. It came from this jar of very old buttons that belonged to my beautiful Great Aunt Sis. Her name was actually "Nancy" but we all called her Aunt Sis. She looked like young Kate Hepburn, and she could do anything. She and I share the same birthday, and she passed away when I was little - but she loved me dearly and we spent time together. I had misplaced these buttons and just found them the other day! (they were hiding behind where I had stored my daughter's old Disney Princess sewing machine) Oh happy day. Now one had to go on a card or something right away!
Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Scrap
When I was around age six or seven in the late 1960's, I loved coloring, gluing, writing stories, and even had a little grey metal sewing machine with a foot pedal and everything. We made doll clothes. So one day, when I was little, I found this big book in my mother's room, and immediately took possession of it--McCall's Make-It Book, published in 1952. I carried this thing everywhere!
Now when I look at it, I can even tell which pages I used the most! I felt like the happy kiddos on the cover--just makin' a table full of craftiness! My worktable looks like that today--only more fun.
Thought I would share some of the precious pages on the inside, because this book covers every kind of craft and even included knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, and weaving!
But first, it taught you how to upcycle. Way to go green 1952!
Then you got your crafty list. I remember gathering some of these things!
Who needs to garden when you can make paper flowers all day! Now I have one of those cool flower weaving things.
I think the sewing cards were my fave. My mother helped punch the holes for me. I probably drove her crazy!
I'm wondering if this where I learned how to sew! Who doesn't like simple sewing.
It's funny how I've pretty much been a cross-stitch-aholic for 25 years...but I do not remember the cross-stitch pages in this book. They are very pristine looking, so obviously I didn't go to this chapter. And I probably didn't have access to aida cloth!
I learned crochet when I was young. But now every time I crochet it ends up in a circle. However, I have not given up! Crochet makes the prettiest trim on things. (I do think the little girl here with the blonde braids is quite proud of herself.)
I did learn how to knit though, at some point. I still have my pink metal knitting needles from when I was ten.
Now I even know how to use double-pointed needles! I should do a dance.
And I know for a fact I took over several empty oatmeal containers from our kitchen to make into all kinds of things. So glad I found my first crafty book again.
Eat, Write, Dream, Stitch, Be Young Again
