BEAUTY FROM THE 1940'S!

I know some of my readers make their own greeting cards and tags.  I have received handmade cards for many years which are so gorgeous, that I still have them in a box in my studio.  It is an art form all of it's own, and it also has become a very popular and expensive craft to get into.

When I was going through things in the studio these past few weeks, I came across an old scrapbook that belonged to my Mom.  I showed you some of the cards I found there in my Lest We Forget post, but there are many more beautiful old Christmas cards I wanted to share with you.

Most of the cards have come loose from the scrapbook, so I took them out and had a really good look at them.

Most are from the 1940's,  and all are made from a single sheet of paper - ordinary weight paper ( like copy paper weight) and they are just folded in four to make a card.

I have to tell you  -  they are gorgeous.  All these years they have survived in the old scrapbook they were glued into - without the aid of acid protectors or any other protective covering they now tell us we need in order to protect paper-related products.

Looking at these beautiful cards makes me wonder why all this money is spent on card making supplies, when we can make them from a simple sheet of paper.  And more so - it makes me want to try and make some of these simple and beautiful cards, myself.

I took some pictures of a few of them for you.  The pictures don't really do them justice, but perhaps will give you an idea of just how simple they really are.  I took three photos of each so you can see how they are made.

If you can draw, you could make these so personal.  You could also cut images from old cards to put behind the cutouts like  3rd card below.  Those of you who have stamps, could use those.

You could add glitter, ribbon, braid... but I don't think you would want anything too heavy as it is just paper and not card stock.

I am going to tea dye a few sheets of copy paper and give a card a try.   I am no artist, but I might even try drawing a winter scene  - it doesn't have to be elaborate - simple will do.

So, my friends - take up the challenge with me - lets see what we can do to create some very special handmade cards for those special people we send cards to this Christmas.



Card #1

 

 

Card #2

 

Card#3

 

Card #4

  

Card #5

 

Card #6

The candle image is a small post-card.

And this one is just a little single postcard - I love it...

I also found a bunch of very old cards from Germany, sent to my Grandparents in the 1940's.

I will share those in a separate post very soon.

Enjoy!