Wanderlust & Pixie Dust

Beautiful Little Trade Card

I think that the colors in this 100 year old and then some, trade card are stunning.    They remainl so very sharp and bright.   Lovely.  Just thought I'd share.

Working On A New Banner & Lovely Old Sheet Music Graphics

I just sudenly decided about a week or so ago that I wanted to change my banner. I started plowing through my collection of vintage ephemera for inspiration. I chose to play and alter the one up you see here.
First I made several copies and then cut the the main image out. The background is painted with acrylic paints. I touched her up a little bit with pastels and voila! She is almost done. I still feel the pull to play around with this some more. I'm no quite done with her. The mica flakes I used were too big and look like fish scales instead. I need to go back and retake some additional photos.

More beautiful sheet music covers for you to enjoy!

Ok. There was no way on this planet that I was going to pass this one up with a title like that:

Reminds me of the book I saw the other day from the 1930's entitled "The Impatient Virgin." I can't get this one off my mind. Sounds like it would be a riot to read. Hmmm. If it is still there in a few days....Then it's meant for me to get it right?

I am discovering that it is getting harder and harder to come by music with lovely graphics. I honestly cannot recall that last time that I came across a pile that anything I was interested in.

These are always so pretty when framed.

Click on Parlor Songs to learn lots more about collecting sheet music. Do any of you collect these? They are usually quite affordable if you are lucky enough to find them.

Love this trade card

I've been very busy. I'm sure everyone else has been too the last several days. I'm sure that I am not the only one playing catch up. I happened to come across this picture of one of my favorite pieces of ephemera and I thought I would take time out to share it. Isn't she sweet? I've named her Mademoiselle Abby after my littlest pom. Everyone admire her pretty please...

For those who love Victoriana

Take a look at this lovely itty bitty piece of emphemera that I dicovered recently. I'm crazy about images from this time period. I think it's so cool how someone handpainted a border around it. I scanned it into my computer and immediately decided to try and do something with it. This is what I did:
This was second attempt at playing around with a blank composition book. The first time that I attempted this I did not care for the results one bit. Ever make something and dislike it immensley. I wasn't planning on making this. It just sort of happened. Seems to be the story of my life...Of course I was in the middle of doing something else. Something I was supposed to be doing. Next thing you know, it was as if this fog just came over me. An hour or so later, my crafting table looked like this:
Goodness. I was like a mad scientist in there. I tore the place up! I didn't quite know what to do with the inside covers so I painted them with acrylic paints. Here is how the back of the book turned out: I actually dared to place it in my ETSY SHOP. Let's see if anyone is interested in it. If not, I'll be more than happy to keep it!

Circa 1870's-Cartes de visite

I'm supposed to be doing something else as usual but somehow I got sidetracked. Next thing ya know I'm scanning a carte de visite into the old computer. It looks as if someone was on a pretty long "Grand Tour" once upon a time or at the very least made several European trips. I found 7 of these near mint beauties in an antique store in Beaumont, California. If you look closely, you'll see that each one is dated back to the 1870's, a different country written on each. My husband argued with me all the way home. "Those aren't old, they sure don't look old!." I think he was just trying to get my goat as usual. I know that these are not rare images by any means but I absolutely love these beautiful 130 year + versions. I have more photos posted to the left under favorite images.