Goodbye 13, Hello 14!

Just getting this New Years post in at the last minute. I wanted to share some New Years-ish ephemera with you from my collection, I say New Years-ish, because this particular postcard you see below is not totally New Years related, but it feels like New Years to me. Especially since attached to it is a printed calender for the year 1977. Also, the Inn reminds me of Holiday Inn.  This Lovett's Inn still exisit. Maybe you will go there if you're in New Hampshire.

Just in case you're not familiar with the film Holiday Inn (and from what I've heard, the chain of motels did take there name from the film) here are some images from the film.

The other piece of ephemera is this Happy New years card from 1876! Looks like it was from some business. 1876 was the year the first telephone call was made. It was only 11 years after Lincoln was shot.

The last thing I want to share is this snapshot of some kind of party. I'm gonna pretend it's a new years party.  I mean what is going on here?

The lady in white seems a bit traumatized by this party. 

Well, hey I am already hearing fireworks.  

Get your kicks, pals! Mine involve some lady comedy and hard cider.  Happy New Year!!

Lawrence Welk Christmas

Things have been busy for me the last part of the year and I haven't been able to post here as much as I would like to. Hopefully I can at least get this one Christmas post in. I wanted to share this Lawrence Welk Christmas Card. In it is a punch out calender with a picture of Lawrence Welk on the back.

Lawrence Welk was a big thing at one time. He had a show on that ran from the 50's through 1980. He had a resort and a restaurant, maybe more than one. It was a big deal. I like watching the old shows, especially the color ones. The colors and sets are amazing and kooky sometimes. It's nice to image that such a sweet simple musical program was so popular. My grandparents would watch it a lot when I was a kid. At that time they were probably my age now. 

Hello September

It's a tiny travesty that I haven't done a blog post on here since the beginning of June. The summer was much busier than I expected and now it's September and truthfully, I'm glad.

One of the reasons I've been busy is that I have a new job. When I was cleaning up my office today I found an old photo I got a few months ago. It seemed appropriate to post it now not just because of my new job but in honor of Labor Day. Having this extra day off gave me a chance to catch up on life a little bit more and I'm grateful for that.

I seem to collect images of people at work. Often offices. I like office party photos, too.  These one below is an 8x10 and it's great to take a good long look at.

It looks like this was a newspaper and I'm guessing the guy in the middle is the editor. He seems to be the only person expecting a photo to be taken. Some interesting expressions here.

I particularly like this vignette and wonder what was going on there.

Hope you had a great Labor Day. I posted a couple new things in the shop today. More to come!

Hello Summertime

A couple days ago I went out to Sauvie Island and got some of the very small and very sweet Hood Strawberries that are in season here in Portland for only a few weeks. Today I attempted to make a couple jars of Strawberry jam. In my typical cooking fashion I kind of screwed it up, but, really strawberries and a little sugar, how bad could it be? It'll be delicious.

So, in honor of the summer, strawberries and all I wanted to add some new postcards to The Cedar Chest Shop.  Hope you are enjoying the bounty of June.

A new listing in the shop. Such a great photo from 1907. Click on photo to see the listing.

A  wonderful summer picnic, a faded memory - a faded photograph

These young women are ready for Summer. Imagine the adventures they had.

Have a Good Time at the Rose Festival

It's already Rose Festival time here in Portland. Truthfully, I don't really partake in the Rose Festival as much as most people, but I like that it exists. I have always loved the local festivals they have in towns all over the U.S.

I do, of course, like to collect Vintage Rose Festival Postcards. The costumes and floats were so pretty back then. Even in black and white you can see that. Here are a few I wanted to share before Rose Festival time is over.

The back of the postcard seen above

Happy Rose Festival from the Summer Capital of America! (Really?)

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.