Get out the sled

ca. 1905

 

Tea time ca. 1920s, Germany

Rainy day cat scrap

More bluster than rain. At least it's not snow...

Kewpie doll scrap, c. 1920s

I love getting homemade cards that use vintage ephemera. This piece of scrap was likely inspired by the Kewpie doll prize at a carnival.

Holiday season scrap, c. 1880s

Slow down! That's what I'd like to tell my calendar, which seems to speed up after Halloween. (Those days dragged slowly when we were children, didn't they?) I'll do my best to savor every day between now and New Year's.

The snow squall we had tonight was beautiful. The snow swirled. Then it was gone.

Scrapbook eyeglasses, c. 1890s

One of the wonderful things about the scrapbook pages I found in Firenze is the artful layout. Here's how the eyeglasses look on the 12x16" page:

And a big thank you to Zippy Photo Stitcher, an easy way to stitch big pages together on my Mac Book.

Red hat lady, c. 1880s

Vintage scrap

Girl in hat, c. 1880s

Tea time

Who among us has not poured a cup of tea for a favorite doll or teddy bear? A colorful scrap from the 1920s or 1930s, I imagine, since it is marked simply "Printed in Germany."

Tea time is one of the best ways to play at being a grown up: you're hosting a party, tending to your guests, thinking up congenial conversation, and holding a teacup just so.

It's hard to think of tea and not think of England. Here's the Queen Mother and King George VI with their daughters Margaret Rose and Elizabeth -- who of course just celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, 60 years on the throne. This is a postcard I found many years ago, unused and undated.

Some favorite writing paper; the flip side has fainter images than these, and makes a lovely background for a letter.

Check out Sepia Saturday to see what others are brewing from this week's theme:

Cat with bib, c. 1880s

Stirring up her morning milk, and maybe a little trouble, too.

Don Quixote, L & B vintage scrap

Penny

It seems impossible that we would have to say farewell so soon to Penny, less than two years after losing Midnight. But that is what we had to do this morning. Penny was a great friend, a loving cat.

My husband long ago created a web site devoted to all the cats we have loved: Lola, Midnight and Penny. (Somewhere, I have a pencil sketch of Toby, the cat I had when I was teenager.)

It is strange to not have a cat in our house, the first time in more than 10 years.  With time, we will be ready to welcome another bundle of furry love into our lives...

Victorian lady

Merry Christmas

Happy Halloween

A Dover classic.

Vintage scrap numbers, c. 1895

Children clamber on and around each number in this whimsical set of vintage scrap.

Scrap paper dolls

Christine H. asked about how scraps are used to create a paper doll. These scraps invited girls to fashion costumes, and the result can be artistic, charming or awkward--or all three at once. Here's a sample that was recently for sale at eclectible.com. The head and shoulders and legs are vintage scrap; the rest, including the doughy arms and the softly drawn hands, and the crepe and lace dress, are the work of a child (or young adult).

Below, a few from my collection:

This is a copy of an old articulated doll. You can see how the torso was created to join the other scrap parts.

This doll (and the one below it) are very old. The child who owned these had only the head and arms to work with; the torso and feet are hand made. Dennison crepe was the paper of choice, from what I've read in many paper doll source books. Although the shiny black paper used to reinforce the back might have been office supplies brought home...

Hansel and Gretel c. 1920

Sunday I went to the Columbus Flea Market and visited Geno Sartori. It's been a while, and he did not disappoint. Geno always has interesting scraps, bridge tallies and paper-cutting of all kinds. I'm taking a wild guess on the year of this vintage scrap of Hansel and Gretel.

A scrap of cats

Another vintage scrap (c. 1890s), purchased from Gwen Goldman. The process of removing these scraps from old scrapbooks--soaking the page in a tub of water!--is not for the faint of heart. But the pros say it works like magic, with the adhesive dissolving and the scraps floating to the surface.

Vintage boot with roses

There's nothing like a paper doll gathering to give the boot to the blues. Gwen Goldman and her daughter Cara Herman had hundreds of vintage scraps to peruse, organized by theme (flowers, dogs, cats, etc.). I found this boot and many other pieces at their table.