Vintage card display

Bringing out all the old Valentine's cards stirred up my interest in all my other cards I had stored in boxes.  There's one box filled with old cards and letters given to me by family, that were in an old trunk in the garage for about thirty years.  I brought them in the house a couple of years ago because they were smelling a bit musty, and since then I've tried everything to get rid of that smell with no luck.  I thought they would have to be thrown but held them in the box until some new remedy was invented.

I remembered the handful of vintage cards I'd bought a number of years ago that had the odor but after displaying them for a while it was gone, so I thought it would do no harm trying this out on the Valentine's cards for a while.  Not only did they look pretty, but I'm dead chuffed to have the mustiness all gone!  I've decided to leave them displayed in my work room along with all the other "musty" cards for a while longer.

I'm going to use my conchos and ribbon to hold the prettiest of the cards, and set the others up high on the cabinets.

Valentine card for Saturday

This card turned out much prettier than it shows here, it isn't as red and doesn't show the Diamond Stickles I added to give it a little bling.

My friend Tam wanted me to show my Valentine's tree, but it isn't anywhere near grand enough to post, just a small artificial tree filled with paper cards and hearts that I  found around the house.  It was a good thing to do because it forced me to gather all the old cards together and I found a lot of cards (not hand made),  from my husband that sat in a trunk for about 30 years.  A little while ago I forced him to sit as I read out all the loving messages in each of them!

I'm going to design a special tree for next year, maybe of dowels or something to hang our cards.  Meanwhile, here's a link to a smashing Valentine Card wreath from Williams Sonoma ($39.95).  I have many of the scraps shown, in Victoriana Calendars that I've been saving so I might just try to make one like it.  I love Valentine's Day!

http://www.exoticexcess.com/decor/valentine-card-wreath/

Come Easter, if I remember, I'll post a picture of my Easter egg tree that has many of my hand crafted styrofoam egg ornaments.   Many moons ago, the galleries that sold some of my other crafts sold these for me as well.  I wonder if people still make them.

I'd love to see links to other people's hand crafted cards or ornaments!

Valentine's Card for Monday.

A Valentine card I made for my husband in 1993, not as old as some of my others.
The center cupid comes from a Victoriana Calendar.
I saw a heart of roses in one of my magazines and used it as the base of this card.  I lifted the center heart higher than normal,  so that silk roses would fit underneath and peak out.  I bet if I sent him this again this year, he wouldn't remember it!

Wallpaper book used for Valentine's cards.

 

A similar doily design to the previous one.  These cards are about 8" x 10" and I  found a wallpaper book to cut up for this one.  The frame was sprayed and covered with lace - also sprayed with silver.  I used thin foam strips to lift different areas this time.  This was before Scrapbooking, or the Internet to find papers of the right color or weight and I remember having the background papers all lined up so I could go over them with a roller and paint.  I think I cut up gift boxes for these.  Today I'm thankful for Bazzil's 500 colors and 7 textures.

Valentine Card

Publish Post

View Blog

This was a Valentine's card I made for my husband years ago.  I used to love making the large Victorian style with lots of cupids, lace and flowers.  Later I made more modern cards, but I think I'll go back to the old style again, especially since I have the computer to help me with images.

The base paper was dull purple velour, I wonder if this paper is still available.  The gold rectangle frame was taken from a large Christmas card, and the lace was sprayed with gold paint - it's much duller now.  I cut out most of the flowers and cupids from cards and magazines except for the center cupid and heart - that was a small card. I made spring coils from gold wire and epoxied them to the pieces for a 3d layered effect.  Now there are all kinds of goodies in the scrapbook stores I could use.