Showing posts with label Victorian trade cards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Victorian trade cards. Show all posts

Monday, March 20, 2017

Happy Spring 2017


Happy Spring!

I thought that you would enjoy this pretty
little French Victorian trade card.

Front...


...and back!...


Save it and use in your art.
I have had the original in my collection for a while.

Happy Spring my friends!

Thursday, September 4, 2014

And here is Miss Phoebe!

Hello out there! I hope that you're having a great day! 

If you have been with me from the beginning, you may remember my first post, two years ago and found here. I talked about why I named this blog what I did. And though the bird up there in my blog's banner is not really a Phoebe, I did recently find a trade card that shows one. If you do follow this blog, you also know that I just love Victorian trade cards.

So, I thought it only appropriate that I share this little darling with you to save and use in your art, or anyhow you like.

 Meet the real Miss Phoebe! 


I am also showing the back of the card, 
where you can see that it advertised 
Arm and Hammer...


You can still find on eBay many trade cards, 
as well as scrapbooks from Victorian times that include 
the trade cards that gals collected and saved. 
Wouldn't it be nice if we could still receive these beauties with every product that we buy?

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Let's hear it for mothers!


Happy Mother's Day to you
and to all of the special women
in your lives!


I bought this trade card a few months ago and had hoped to incorporate it into a piece of fabric art, but haven't had the time yet. Feel free to copy and save it and use it as you wish. 

I hope that you have a great day!!

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Wishing you a Happy Spring!

Good morning and :Happy Spring! 

I've been busy doing a major spring cleanup of my kitchen this week, but wanted to take a minute to share these wonderful springtime images with you to use in your art. I just love these old trade cards. Click and save to use as you wish!

Have you seen much that is cuter than
this?


Or this?
I love this mama bird with her baby 
on her back!


Enjoy the trade cards, and enjoy your day.
I hope that nice weather is coming your way!

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Spring is in the air...

Spring is coming.
The weather is getting so nice. 

Ride on a swing...


Play on the beach...


But remember it still gets cool when the 
sun goes down!

I hope you love these trade cards as much as I do. The outfits that these children are wearing speak so well to this time of the year. Feel free to right click on them and use them as you wish.

Have a lovely day!


Monday, March 10, 2014

Just a little "hello"!

Hello everyone! 
I'm sorry that I've been away from this blog for almost a month,
but "busy" seems to be the story of my life lately.

Busy doing chores...


...and busy with a new art project.
I started gathering materials for this
prior to the holidays, if you recall, 
but put it aside for awhile. 
I recently resumed working on it.
It's requiring a lot of work and time,
but here is a glimpse of just a small part of it...


...and not to mention VERY  busy with the remodeling of our master bathroom,
 which is finally completed. Hooray.
I'm not ready to share photos yet, as it still needs a few touches,
but here is a glimpse of one of my
favorite parts of it...


What have you been doing to keep busy lately?
Have a great evening!

Monday, June 10, 2013

Sweet little girls of Summer...

These sweet little girls and I are coming your way just to say hello.


I will be busy this week with family from Florida and Massachusetts visiting us,
but wanted to let you know that I was thinking of you!
Have a great day.


Sunday, March 17, 2013

Happy St. Patrick's Day, and some good recipes...



To all my Irish friends, I hope that you're having a great St. Patrick's Day today. Though neither my husband nor I are Irish, I did make a great Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe yesterday, letting it cook while I put down some pinestraw in the garden. A couple of years ago I searched the internet for a good recipe that went above and beyond the "throw everything in the pot with the packet of spices that comes with the meat and boil the dickens out of it" venue, and tried the one below (scanned along with my little comments!). If you're like me and feel that "boiled equals tasteless", try this one. It is worth the extra work and I think that you'll like it! Click to enlarge and print out if you'd like.


It's no secret that I love to cook, so here is another recipe that I tried at the beginning of the week. The recipe is for Roasted Cauliflower Soup, from Miss Mustard Seed's blog, and you can find it here.  She offers some  lovely photos and step-by-step directions for making this. I think that you'll enjoy this one as well. My husband really loved it, too! And it is as good re-heated as it was the day I made it. By the way, I did roast the cauliflower, which would have even been good by itself as a side dish!

Eat well!

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The pets we love...




Good morning friends! I hope that you are all well. This week I'm thinking about pets, and the joy they bring to all of us that have them. I,m also thinking about how much we worry about them when they are not up to par.

Do you ever have a week that just goes badly? Among other things in the past week, and in addition to the drama around dead car batteries and my toothache that comes and goes, we also had to take our little lady, Rosie, to the Vet for oral surgery the other day. (I thought about asking the Vet if we could get a cut rate if I let her deal with my tooth as well, but their cages are not big enough for me to be held in.) She is doing OK, but now our little guy, Ollie, is kind of lethargic. He had also spent some time at the Vet this week having had his annual exam, so I am hoping that his quiet mood is only because of that. These cats do not like being taken out of their home environment, kind of like me (sometimes, anyway).

Rosie...


Ollie...


Of course, the fun part about the dead car battery was that on the way home from taking Rosie in for the surgery, we stopped in at the grocery store to pick up a few things, and when we got out, the battery was dead. We ended up having Bob's sister and brother-in-law come and jump-start the car, and then made lemonade out of lemons by all going back to our house and immediately devouring half of the cinnamon-apple pie that I had just bought. And, I guess that looking on the bright side of things, the battery could have died next month while we were using that vehicle as our tow car behind the motor home on our trip to Florida. Needless to say, we are now the proud owners of a new battery in that car!

Well, that being said, I hope this post finds you and your pets happy and healthy, and having a great week so far!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

My latest vintage photo craze...

Good morning to you!

If you like to collect old photos, what kinds do you collect? I must confess that I have always loved cabinet cards the best, especially those of young children. If you're anything like me, you probably have scads of them by now. So lately, I have started to collect pictures around subjects in themes, always looking for some new art inspiration. Though I still buy old cabinet photos, I have also been buying some CDV's (which are actually older than the cabinet cards and a little smaller), RPPCs (real photo postcards), as well photos taken in the 20's and 30's. I love to see the changes in fashions over the years, as well as the differences in what the photographers used as props and backgrounds.

Here are some that have recently made their way into my collection, shown with some vintage postcards that I have also formed a fondness for...

For some reason, I have been drawn to children
in goat carts...


And people sitting on moons...


And people sharing my love of lakes.
In cabins...


and in boats...



And what about children in photographers' studios?
I think that of all the photos that I own,
these three are amongst my favorites...


And I can't forget to mention the beach,
even if these were all taken in a studio...


And how about some trade cards to match?


I'm also working on collecting around some other themes. More on that later.
OK, Sue. FOCUS!!


Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Songs of love and cheer...

The New Year comes with happiness,
with songs of love and cheer.
The New Year comes
with many joys;
Oh, I am glad it's here...
--ANNA JOHNSON



I wish you and your families a safe, healthy, and happy New Year. May it be a year of new beginnings and many opportunities!

Friday, November 30, 2012

Some art freebies for you...

Good morning again! This is the first time I've posted twice in one day, but I wanted to share these two sweet children with you. These are very old so did not scan too well (not to mention my printer/scanner is on the blink). The plaid dress on the child in the photo makes me think of Christmas outfits, and the trade card has put me in the winter spirit.

I probably will not post for a few days as good friends of ours are coming to visit next week, so I will be rather busy.

I hope you enjoy these. Maybe after the holidays I will actually have some time to use them in some art!




Have a great weekend!

Monday, November 19, 2012

Victorian trade cards for you....

Happy Monday friends. I hope that you all had a great weekend.

I was thinking about some of the things that I love to collect, and one of them is Victorian trade cards. I am sure that you have seen these in antique shops, but for those of you that don't know what they are, they were an early example of the modern business card. They were usually printed with an image on one side, and had space on the other side for the business to add its own information. They actually first became popular at the beginning of the 17th century in London, but the ones that we generally see were printed starting in the 1880's. What I particularly love about them is the beautiful color printing on some of these cards. I also find the printing on the back intriguing, as they advertise some of the seemingly craziest cures and products (by today's standards, anyway) at the very low prices being reflective the the era. And I find it incredible that these have survived for so long.

Here are I couple for you to use in your art, and for your reading enjoyment, I also scanned the backs that go with each! Most of the ones that I collect are beautiful to look at, and in a way it makes me sad to know that 130 years from now, with the current means of advertising being predominantly television and the Internet, no one will likely have such a pretty record of what we, as a society, used today. Am I the only one who feels like this?







I will share some others in a future post. Enjoy, and have an artful day!