Edwardian Postcards: Grete Reinwald

Hello to all and happy Tuesday!

Prior to the start of the holiday season, I was doing a search on Etsy for Edwardian seasonal postcards featuring children. I happened upon quite a few of one particular little girl who was just beautiful, and wondering who she was, I finally found some that were labeled with her name.

She was Grete Reinwald (May 25, 1902 – May 24, 1983), a famous German child model when she was young, who then went on to become a stage and film actress. She had the sweetest face when she posed for the postcards, so I couldn't resist buying a few, seen below, and will hopefully use them in some future art pieces. I think you will agree that they are so pretty, and you may even already own some postcards with her on them.

You may find additional information about her on the internet, but I found a one-time blog post particularly informative, and you can read it here.

I love these and thought that they will make

some lovely Valentine Day's and spring, or Easter,

greeting cards...

These Christmas cards are stunning, I think.

Of course, I love the sepia-toned variety...

...but the hand-tinted ones,

with just a trace of color,

are also so lovely...

A real collector of post cards probably wants those

of the mint variety, with no writing on the back,

but I am partial to ones where I can see the

postmark and stamp,

not to mention the beautiful handwriting of those

who lived so long ago...

Though in the past I have not been a fan of some of the

Edwardian postcards because I thought the children

looked too "posed" and the coloring too fake,

this season I revised my opinion of some of them,

and treated myself to these few as a Christmas present to myself.

Have you bought anything new lately for your self?

If so, what was it, and how will you use it?

As ever, thanks so much for stopping by to visit.

Advertising and Blogs

 

Hello friends. I try to keep this blog on a positive note and leave the ranting for others, so I have put off writing this post for quite some time now. But yesterday, as I was reading some of the blogs that I follow, there was a link to another blog that looked like it would make for nice reading. So I clicked on the link and found a fairly nice home decor blog. Simple enough.

Have you noticed how advertising has found its way to so many blogs (especially the home decor ones), that it isn't even pleasant to read them anymore? I do most of my blog reading on my iPad when I am having my coffee in the morning, and have approached the point where it takes so much time to get past the ads (some of which I can't even "x" out of, or lock up my screen altogether), that I am no longer going to read any that cause so much aggravation. I may as well just go out and buy a magazine and put up with those advertisements.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind some advertising. As a matter of fact, I tried AdSense for a very short period of time. At least that vehicle had the good sense to place advertisements where I wanted them placed, and with content that was relative to my post. But I choose not to read blogs anymore that have a pop-up ad every time I scoll down to the next paragraph, at the same time as having others pop up from either side of the screen, and in a much bigger format that the blog post I am trying to read in the first place. I guess these are the bloggers that we see on Pinterest claiming to earn 100 grand a year on their blogs. Oh, and let's not forget the blog setups that give you a short paragraph and then make you click to "read more", where, of course, you are switched to another screen and start all over with yet more ads.

 

But back to the blog that I linked to through one of the blogs that I read...This gal with the lovely home and family, who indicated that her faith was the focus of her life, had a unique form of advertising that I had not seen before. You know how when you get to the bottom of someone's post and it has little glimpses indicating "other posts that you might be interested in"? Ones that are usually relative to the post that you just read? Well, at the bottom of this post were  four such glimpses. One was to a post from her own blog. One was for a new testosterone booster. One was about what happens when you take a testosterone supplement, and the last, accompanied by a very suggestive photo, was about the most embarrassing dirty photos on the web. In fine print at the bottom of each thumbnail the sponsor was stated.  I checked this same blog today, and at the bottom of its very lovely post, was an ad for the "skinny pill sweeping the nation", and it was illustrated by an awful looking person, with what were very exaggerated facial features. Would you want to end your own posts this way? I wonder if some people read their own blogs as a viewer would see them.

I personally believe that our blogs should be extensions of ourselves, and not gimmicks for advertising at our readers' expense. Especially when the ads are not at all relative to the type of  reader who is taking the time to follow that blog in the first place. But that's just my humble and worthless opinion.

By the way, the advertising you see at the top of my post is scanned from a 1923 Woman's World magazine that I have in my ephemera collection. And it is the only type of advertising that you will see on this old woman's blog.  Feel free to save it to your computer and use it as you wish. 

 

I wonder if the women of 1923 got tired of seeing advertisements everywhere they went!

Thanks for putting up with me today!

Antique French Letters and Documents

Hello dear friends.


In my quest for beautiful materials to use in paper collage I discovered a lovely Etsy shop in Canada and purchased some of the prettiest antique French letters and documents that I currently own. They were waiting for me when I got back last week, and I was so glad that they were!

First of all, I could barely bring myself to open up this beautiful

packaging.

The seller must have taken so much time to cover this 

standard shipping envelope with such gorgeous collage work.

Even the postage stamps were chosen with such care.

(Pardon me for covering up the seller's and my adresses

with ugly sticky notes,

but you know how it goes on the internet!)...

I tried to capture in my photo that these items were all

glued onto the scripted background paper.

I hope that you can see that the hat is dimensional...

Even the back of the envelope had more ledger

paper on it,

along with pretty coordinating black and 

white striped washi tape to hold it all together...

  I very carefully cut opened the envelope to

remove the contents.

As you can imagine, I saved the envelope! 

And inside was the most beautiful collage material wrapped 

together as shown below

and tied with delicate twine.

A freebie postcard copy was on top,

with a thank-you written on back...

Do I love this beautiful bird-themed beauty?...

I had ordered two different sets,

and each was tied up separately...

I love the stunning blues of this one...

And the creamy color of  this set, 

along with the stunning blue stamps and postmarks.

They were all unusual in that the envelopes were

the outside parts of the letters themselves. 

Don't you love the gorgeous handwriting on them?

If you are interested in checking out this shop,

the link is here.

Will I ever use the originals of these in any kind of art?

Nope!!!

But I will make copies of them!

Have you found anything stunning lately?

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We will be heading up to The Nest shortly,
so you may not hear from me for a bit.
One of these days I will master posting from my cell phone or iPad.

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PS. Is there anyone besides me that finds that spacing after paragraphs
in Blogger has gotten wonky lately?

A Vintage Cradle Roll Certificate

Good morning.


In my recent search for paper ephemera, I found this piece on Etsy. I ended up buying it only because it was so beautiful and I had never seen one before.


From what I could find on Google, a cradle roll certificate is, and was, presented to the parents of an infant to establish that the child was a member of the Cradle Roll, composed of a group of children from birth to two years old, too young for Sunday School but important members of the church family nevertheless. I have my own Christening/Baptism certificate, but I had never seen a cradle roll certificate before. Not all faiths use them.

I received this from an Etsy shop that has an 

amazing amount of goodies for collage and

assemblage artists.

She even threw in the beautiful rose cigarette cards

and Arm & Hammer bird advertising card

as a bonus.

Not to mention a lovely photo holder.

Did you know that cigarette cards are a 

collector's item in their own right? 

That they were enclosed with cigarettes

as freebies back in the day is amazing!

They came in various series and many were

so beautiful...

 

Oops, I digressed.

Back to the cradle roll certificate.

The image is so beautiful...

 

It would make a lovely banner for a blog

(my blog, maybe).

Kathryn Louise,

I hope that you had 

(or are still having) a wonderful life

and kept God in your heart...

 

So, the cradle roll certificate, 

along with a few vintage checks and receipts 

that I showed you in an earlier post

came packaged so sweetly in this vintage bag

closed up with Washi tape

and tied with lovely shades of seam binding...

  

and came from one of my favorite sellers on Etsy.

You can find her here.

Go ahead. 

Pour yourself a cuppa and take a while to browse her shop.

I defy you to window shop and not want to buy at least

five things.

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Have you purchased any cool things lately for your own art endeavors?

 Thanks for coming by.

Vintage Checks and Receipts

Happy Monday! I hope that your week is getting off to a good start.



Recently I decided that whenever I have the time I might like to go back to creating paper collage. I have already thought about the theme I am going to use, and have begun collecting some vintage paper ephemera. Recently I have become infatuated with vintage checks, receipts and letterhead, mostly from the late 1800's and early 1900's. I am going to share some pictures of them. I don't think, though, that I will ever to be able to use the originals. Copies will work just fine.

I think that these antique engraved checks are gorgeous.

The pictures on them...

 ...and the cursive print...

 ...are just gorgeous.

This one had the added bonus of the original

handwriting of the owner.

I wish someone would write me a check for $7500.00!

I wonder what that would have bought you 115 years ago?!...

I also love that this one and the one with the liberty bell

shown above have a patriotic flair...

Here are some receipts, again,

with beautiful typography and pictures...

...and I love that one above and the

two below are in a farm or agriculture theme...

 

Can't you just see the possiblities?

My wheels are spinning!

To Dorothy from Lillian: A Story (Part Two)

Did Dorothy live in Louisville, KY, 

or is this only where the church was?

Did she spend the summer of 1927 at the

Crab Orchard Springs Hotel

in Crab Orchard, KY,

where she received this letter?

Dorothy was a model in a style show at the Elks Auxiliary

February 9th.

Was this the following year?...

How did the little boy in the toy plane relate to these gals?

It is surely an adorable photo...

The fold-out caption in the photo below on the left

states: "And those button pictures --why,

Martha Gunterman and everyone else 

were wearing them".

Have you ever seen those photo buttons in antique stores?

Did photographers come around and take the photos

for them?...

Some more local goings-on,

and at last,

another letter mailed to Miss Dorothy Reck 

in Louisville, KY.

Her name has appeared 

quite often in this scrapbook...

And on the next-to-last page,

far right on top,

there is a newspaper photo of pretty Miss Reck!...

So what was the relationship of Lillian to Dorothy,

and why did Lillian give the book to her?

Here is a glimpse of the letter that was sent from Lillian to Dot

at the hotel in Crab Orchard Kentucky...

They were cousins!

And who was the "mixed media artist"?

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As promised, this was the favorite of my antique finds

from Florida.

I started looking at this book in the shop,

and couldn't bear leaving it there and never finding out

 more about Lillian and Dorothy.

After reading all of the pages,

(a lot more than I could show in these posts)

along with the few letters,

I still don't know much about them,

and didn't see any photos of Lillian.

I didn't want to show you all of the letters,

as it seemed that they should remain private.

I hope that you enjoyed looking at some of this sweet book, though.

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Dear Lillian and Dorothy:

My name is Sue.

It was nice getting to know you.

How did your lives end up? 

Did you remain close to each other throughout your lives?

I'd like to think that you did.

To Dorothy from Lillian: A Story (Part One)

Once upon a time,

in the 1920's,

a young gal kept track of the local

happenings that related to her life.

Her name was Lillian.

Upon the graduation of Dorothy,

Lillian gave the scrapbook to her...

Lillian kept track of sorority members,

theater parties,

bunco parties,

and birthdays...

...requests for submissions

to their school newspaper...

...not to mention Freshman stunts to

advertise school plays...

...and what appear to be other local happenings...

Who was Lillian, 

and who was Dorothy?

They weren't much different than the young

gals of today,

admiring the good looking athletes...

Photos of friends were lovingly clipped

from newspapers and pasted into the

scrapbook...

...along with well wishes,

class schedules,

and letters to Dorothy...

Who was Lillian?

Who was Dorothy,

and what did she look like?

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To be continued!