Collections

I have been going through all my ephemera collections lately. You wouldn't know it by the quietness on this blog, but I have actually been immersed in my collections of vintage photos, postcards and ephemera.

I've been taking some pics as I discover little collections here and there. Here are some I've discovered. It's funny how you don't realize your collecting something sometimes until you see you've got several of a theme.  I like that.

I was pleased to discover I have a collection of Elephant Valentines.

I'm always attracted to photos of shops. I love to see the merchandise and displays.

This is a selection of the dance cards and dance programs I've collected. 

These photos are photos I've used in zines. They stand out to me amoungst the rest like they have day glo-paint. I am so familiar with them.

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. 

starting to return to normal

For the last month or so I've been busy working on my zine for the Portland Zine Symposium. This is why things have been so quite here.

The zine I made this year is all about Vintage Postcards! I wanted to do some outreach, teach some folks about them and tell them why they're so neat. People seemed to be really interested in them at the symposium and I even gave away some applications to the local Postcard Club.

If you read this blog, you probably already are a collector, but if you're interested I thought I'd let you know about the new zine. Below is a picture of my table at the zine symposium last weekend. You can read more about that on my other blog here.

This new issue of my hodge-podge themed zine Paper Crush is Paper Crush #4. Each zine comes with a free vintage postcard. You can find it at here on The Cedar Chest shop.

Now, I am working on getting the house and my life back in order. A back injury and a cold haven't helped me much. Hopefully, I'll be posting more postcards and photographs soon.

evidence

I have been busier than I would like to be lately. Where did the summer go? I can't believe it is already the end of summer. This weekend is the Portland Zine Symposium. It is the tenth year and I have been to every one. I will be tabling there with my new zine, Imaginary Life #7.

I love using my old photographs and postcards for zines and art projects. That is why I started collecting them in the first place and also because I was just so drawn to them and to the untold stories they held. I don't have any pics of the new zine yet, but you can see some of the materials I used on the PonyBoy Press blog.

So, hopefully I will be back to sharing my ephemera collection with you soon. Meanwhile, how amazing is this color moving pictures from 1922! You can tell that some of the models don't quite get the moving part and are just posing. Interesting. I noticed that in that film Electric Edwardians.

You can almost hear the director saying, okay move around, do something. Come to think about it, I remember my dad saying the same thing to me and my sister when he would pull us up to use the last of his 16mm reel. You think we would have known to not just pose. Ha!

Anyway, this is beautiful and dreamy and seeing people in color form 1922 is so amazing.