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!

summer traditions

I hope your summer has been good. August is so close and it seems hard to believe. I have done some summery stuff, but never as much as I want to. Right now I really need to buckle down and work on my zines for the zine sympoisum. Last year at this time I was doing my zine about postcards.

Last week I got to help out two different couples who were planning a wedding very soon and they wanted a guest book of all vintage postcards that people write messages in and then place in a mailbox. It was so fun to pick out ones that were pretty and appropriate. One of the couples wanted 160 with a general theme of travel. I got a mix of mid-century and early century, photographs and illustrations. I think the collection was a nice variety of pretty and kitschy. Here is picture I took before I sent them off.

If your interested in this service, you can find out more on this Custom Vintage Post Card for Weddings Etsy listing.

My garden is blooming like crazy. You, too? I am in love with my hydrangea bush this year. It was double in size since last year and has a ton of big firework-like pink blooms. This plant started as a potted blue version from Trade Joe's. When I put it in the ground it bloomed the next summer as pink.

I've been admiring all the hydrangea bushes I've seen all around town, too. Some are quite big. When I was kid we had a blue one on the side of the house and I kind of always thought of it as a big weed. It didn't seem like a flower to me because it was a bush. Now, I see the appeal of them.

I recently got this vintage postcard from 1911 because of the hydrangea bush. Lovely! 

This postcard was sent in Jan 1911 from Ann in Anaheim, California to her mother in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Most likely this is the house she lived in, in fact probably where Ann lived before she moved...or maybe she is just on vacation.

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I recently bought a photograph on Ebay, which I seldom do. I like double exposure photos and this one just looked too neat to pass up. It shows a typical summer day for some.

This beach looks a little too crowded for my tastes, but it sure makes a neat picture.

What are some of your favorite summer traditions? I hope you can enjoy more of them before the summer is over. 

Greeting for Easter Day

I'm very fond of this lovely and modern style Easter postcard from 1910.  I love the sweet greeting poem.too.

I'm not sure what these buds are. Maybe magnolia buds? I was at my mother's house yesterday and saw her Magnolia bush and the buds looked a lot like these.

This postcard was sent to Mary in Lowell, Mass from another Mary. She seems a little peeved that Mary hasn't written her back since her recent move, but still wishes her and her husband a Happy Easter. It looks like Mary's new old house is still standing.

Happy Spring and Easter to all of you!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

when girls and flowers shared names

The photograph on the left:

Pansy Miley Lawrence, aged 16 years 5 months. To Katie. Pansy Lawrence ----- Galesburg, Ill

The photograph on the right:

from Daisy. J.E.M.

I love the old trend of naming girls after flowers. I am sure many people have taken it up again in the last ten years. I met a woman once named Columbine. Unfortunately, I think less people would associate that with the flower nowadays.

Some other popular flower/plant names form the past: Magnolia, Violet, Fern, Ivy, Olive, Begonia, Blossom, Flora, Gardenia, Forsythia, Hyacinth, Lily, Jasmine, Marigold, Petunia, Poppy, Petula, Rose.

Are there any you have to add?

Although men are seldom named after flowers and plants, I have always liked the name Garland for a man, although it is rather flowery. There was a commercial on TV years and years ago with two old men. Their names were Gilbert and Garland and I have always been so fond of those names.