Nostalgia: Vintage Christmas Card Countdown No. 2, When Bells are Ringing

Vintage Christmas Card No. 2, When Bells are Ringing

This vintage Christmas card from 1905 blends a late Victorian/early Edwardian Santa image (he's more serious than jolly and looks like a monk with no trim on his cap) with the elegant leaves and shapes of Art Nouveau.  The card is embossed and the Santa figure is a separate die cut image that is tucked into an opening in the front of the card, giving it a sense of depth and dimension.

The text is interesting because it is one of the first times that Christmas is abbreviated to the casual "Xmas."

The text inside is flat printed in a pale blue and reads:

Wishing You a Merry

and Happy Xmas

To-day the golden sunlight

Is fluff and broad and strong;

The glory of the One Light

Must overflow in song,

Song that floweth ever,

Sweeter every day,

Song whose echoes never, 

Never die away

And to my delight, on the back in pencil is this message:

With love and a Merry Christmas to May Fraiser

AP Bulger 

Dec 1905

Nostalgia: Vintage Easter Greetings

These wonderful vintage postcards are part of my Easter collection.  The pastoral and cheerful natural images heralding the return of spring in the illustrations make me happy, especially when it means saying good-bye to winter with flocks of fuzzy, newly hatched chicks.  

The hatching chick card (above) originally caught my eye for its elaborate embellishments.  The lovely celadon paper is engraved with lavender metallic ink with a scalloped and bordered edge.  There is also lovely embossing that frames the oval which contains the illustration, which is pasted onto the card.  Having worked in the stationery industry, I appreciate the complexities of these embellishments and their overall subtly.  While the back is inscribed in pencil, “With best wishes for Easter, from Peggy” it is mysteriously not printed for mailing.   

The gathering of chicks around a be-ribboned egg (above) is a postcard that I found in Germany during my visit there in March of 2009.  I discovered it at the same market that I mentioned in my last post.  One of the more interesting details is that the illustration is signed by the artist, something that you don't see too often.

Last but not least, I couldn’t leave out these wonderful Victorian vintage die-cuts of flowering spring wheel barrows.  I found these at one of my local antique haunts and was inspired to use them on some spring-themed decorative boxes I was making.

Just like these little wheel barrows, I hope your spring is off to a bountiful start!