Old Paper Press

 “Encourage the beautiful, for the useful encourage itself.” - Goethe 

So much going on here in this illustration by Dorothy Furniss! The kiddos seem to be having fun, leaving scattered toys in their wake, while their aunt just looks on in shock. (Perfectly captured expression of a woman who doesn’t know children having to spend time with them! )

Aww, this is the life. This boy is kicking back, enjoying the start of summer, no worries to bother him as he watches the clouds!

This card is gorgeous! It has a

layered die-cut design an lots of flowers - so Victorian! Probably printed sometime between 1880 to 1910, when this kind of thing was all the rage!

Text reads, “For Auld Lang Syne” and ”With best Wishes for the New Year”. 

A blackbird perched on a rock amidst flowers. The same image, with the caption of "Rusty Blackbird" printed beneath the illustration, was printed by Armstrong & Co. Lith, Boston, in 1887, by G. E. Marsh & Co. of 395 Chestnut St. in Lynn, MA, as part of a series of bird trade cards.

A Christmas postcard featuring pink roses and bittersweet nightshade (Solanum dulcamara). 

The greeting reads, “A Happy Christmas to you”.

When I saw the original with "Merry Christmas" handwritten in it, I thought this would make a great one for crafters and junk journalers! (Journalists? Um...people who junk journal!) This one was printed in 1877 by L. Prang & Co.

So I removed the image and viola! If you use it, I'd love to know. (You'd make my day...but no pressure!)

I'm sometimes struck by the images on Christmas cards in the late 1800's. Take this girl, for instance, who looks fairly miserable to be out in the chilly snow, perhaps a little grumpy. Yet the sentiment cheerfully reads, "Keep this Christmas in your heart."

These two images were included in a scrapbook a girl named Minnie made from her sister, hosted at Digital Commonwealth.

They are both illustrations from the 1882 book "My Own Dolly," by Amy E. Blanchard, illustrated by Ida Waugh. (She is officially one of my favorite 19th-century artists!)

Being new to the ephemera scene, there is so much to learn...and I'm enjoying trying to learn it all!

These are two Victorian-era die-cut illustrations, or "scraps". I had come across the term here and there, but I didn't realize it meant die-cuts. I'll be sharing this knowledge with uninterested friends and family for weeks!