The Rose City

Portland is also called The Rose City and every year there is a Rose Festival here that has many events and last from a month from May to June.

I have been collecting some old images of the rose Festival and will post some as it gets closer to that time, but today I wanted to post this awesome photo with these two women surrounded by roses. I love the way they are looking at each other and someone literally made a frame of roses for people to pose behind. I don't know if this took place during the Rose Festival, but it's a good guess.

I also just put this pretty tinted postcard of the girl picking roses in the Etsy shop today, so the two of them inspired me to do a little collage with them. Behind the title are some young Rose Festival participants in the early 1900's.

Portland is in ridiculous bloom right now, Flowers, trees, everything is blooming and the streets look like illustrations with all the green leaves and bright colors. Enjoy the blooms in your town!

On the Shelf

I am very fond of this vacation response postcard I found a while ago. It was so common for people to send postcards from their vacations that response postcards were created. Who knew? This was the first one I've seen.

The message says:

Am glad you're having a high old time,

and I'd like to be there myself;

but there seems to be seasons for everything,

and I guess this is mine for the shelf.

Does this message sound a little bitter to you? Snarkyish? Ha! I find it funny, but aren't we are a little envious of people's vacations?

it might seem like I've been on the shelf here at the old Cedar Chest Blog. I have been busy and had other things that keep placing themselve in front of me. I've spent the last couple of days organizing all my ephemera (Um, yeah, I have WAY too much) and am going to posting more on the blog and in the shop soon (fingers crossed).

Are vacationing soon? I hope you have a high old time and that is said with no bitterness (unless you're going to Prince Edward Island).

Collections, what's yours?

What do you collect? I'd love to know. I find other people's collections really interesting. Please share your collections with me here or on my Facebook post.

Something I have wanted to collect is images of other people's collections. It's pretty hard to find and I've only mildly tried, but I want to share with you 2 of my photos from the collection.

This is a great image of someone's collection of model cars that they framed. I love the clean orderliness of collections like this when they are displayed.

I adore this image because it shows a room display from around the early 1900's with lots of postcards, photos and clippings, as well as some Indian baskets and other things. These are all the things I collect and I have many items from this time in my collection. I'm assuming this is a man's space. The newspaper article is about a football game. He's got a number of postcards, one with a Wisconsin pennant, a number of photos of women, some pictures of animals, some drawing and sketches, dried flowers and some American Indian photo. It's a good collection.

A fun photo collection is a shown on a website called With Cameras. Todd Wermer collects images of women with cameras. I love it when a person has such a defined collection of photos or postcards. Here are some of my favorite images from his tumblr site. 

Happy Valentines Day to You from the Pacific Northwest

I have the perfect Vintage Valentines for folks in the Pacific Northwest. I am going to make it available for you to download and print. So, if you haven't gotten your Valentine yet, fear not. All you need is a color printer. Or you can simply post on your friend's wall with the image.

This valentine is made to be propped up. You can see the v slit and the tab slit in the bottom. Use an exacto knife there if you want it to be able to stand up. Print on cardstock if you have it. To download click on the image and choose download the large size..

Happy St. Valentine's Day from rainy Portland (although it is currently dry right now). Hope you have a great day!

A Valentines Banquet

I was excited to find this large portrait at a recent Postcard Club meeting. I love pictures of old fashioned Valentines parties. I have one other Valentines party photograph that I posted about a couple of years ago.

For some reason I feel the need to color in the hearts. So, I did, along with some of the ferns.

I would so love to be at this Valentine Party. It looks like a nice spread. Notice the man poking out from the doorway? On the back of the photo it says Hotel Goodland, Kansas. I wonder what kind of group of women this was? Were they all just friends or part of some club or organization?

Vintage Valentines and Kiddie's Play Roof

I was so charmed by this vintage postcard I found yesterday of the Kiddie's Play Roof Top at The St. George Hotel. Boy, I'd have liked to go there. Of course I imagine it just like this - as an illustration. Wasn't the past all like this? I looked for actual pictures of the play roof and didn't find any.

I have added the postcard above to the shop along with a number of vintage valentines. The 1920's ice skater valentine below is moveable and so cute.

to ye future

A Happy New Year to you! I hope your Christmas was wonderful. 

I love this week in between Christmas and New Years. There is really not too much you can do. Too early to put decorations away (I like having them up for New Years), you can take your time putting away gifts, finishing off the Christmas cookies and enjoying your new books and movies. 

Here are a couple of New Years postcards I am very fond of. Here's to 2013! May it have lots of wonderful and joyous surprises.

Today is Postcard Friendship Friday. You can visit Beth's blog The Best Hearts are Crunchy and see more posts from postcard blogs, most likely with a New Years theme.