let's do vintage: May 2008

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Dover publications

If you take a look at amazon.com, they have an abundance of books with old fashioned Christmas illustrations. See here

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Old-fashioned+Christmas+Illustrations&x=0&y=0

Friday, May 16, 2008

Victorian clip art to buy on a cd

http://www.vintageclipart.com/christmasclipartbuy.htm

Mamelok Press in Bury St Edmunds

This company produces and prints scraps etc.

http://www.mamelok.com

Images to buy for around £8 an image

Try http://www.victorian-imagery.com/ass.html for these butterflies

Buy christmas scraps under license from...

We could buy from this website - $250 a design!
http://victorianclipartdelite.com/pro_use_license.shtml

And try websites on this list:

http://www.scrapalbum.com/links.htm

Company who makes victorian scraps

A great website which includes lots of ideas for scraps, victorian christmas decorations, dolls to dress etc.

http://www.shackman.com

Christmas Music Makers

For a few weeks before Christmas the streets of 19th century London began to assume a new aspect for London was a musical city, with many groups of music makers playing on the busy streets.

Origins of the Christmas tree

The Christmas tree is captivatingly beautiful to children’s eyes as it stands in its blazing brilliancy, gleaming with lights and laden with such thick-hanging clusters of rich and varied fruit. Prince Albert is credited with the introduction of the Christmas Tree in England. It quickly became the centre piece of all seasonal decoration.

“The birthplace of the Christmas-Tree is Egypt, and its origin dates from a period long antecedent to the Christian era. The palm-tree is known to put forth a shoot every month and a spray of this tree with twelve shoots on it was used in Egypt at the time of the winter solstice as a symbol of the year completed. The palm-tree spray of Egypt, on reaching Italy, became a branch of any other tree (the tip of the fir was found most suitable from its pyramidal or conical shape) and was decorated with burning tapers lit in honour of Saturn, whose saturnalia were celebrated from the 17th to the 21st of December, the period of the winter solstice.”
Illustrated London News December 1854

Christmas greetings from the animal world

Love me and love my dog
Dogs, along with cats, were the favourite animal to be frequently featured on Christmas cards. They were often given anthropomorphic postures, perhaps to emphasize the harmonious companionship the Victorians had for their pets. More likely, however, was for the fun often poked at the similarity between certain canine characteristics and their human counterparts.

Fluffy Bipeds
All kinds of birds flutter across the Victorian Christmas and New Year card. The English robin takes pride of place on cards of the 1860s and 70s, perhaps because of its long association with folklore and legend. Exotic birds from the nations of the world graced the cards, bringing vibrant and exciting colours to enliven the dull and cold winter days. In late Victorian times it became fashionable to wear whole stuffed birds as decoration on hats. This was soon followed by a movement to ban such practices. In the early part of Victoria’s reign there was a vogue for lavishly illustrated books about the new and exotic birds which were being brought back to England by sailors and naturalists. The transformation of these wild creatures into pets, that became members of the family or companions, combined with the joys of teaching parrots, macaws and other cherished birds to talk, captivated the imagination of the Victorians.

Butterflies and insects
We sometimes forget how the Victorians valued the natural history all around them, exemplified by the abundance of cards, exquisitely decorated and embossed of beautiful flower studies. It is, therefore, not surprising to find insects alongside the animals in our Christmas Menagerie.

The dazzling dragon-fly, with sparkling
wings glittering with changing colours, like Tiffany stained glass, was a favourite subject of Art Nouveau jewellers.

The fairy tales of ages past make us aware of the great number of frogs that have been transformed into handsome princes by the most welcome arrival of a kiss from a beautiful princess.

19th Century Hidden name cards

Appearing in the 1880s in the USA these calling-card novelties carry a hinged embossed scrap that conceals the bearer’s name which is only visible when the scrap is lifted. The name is printed in the centre of the card and the floral ornament can be raised at one end to show the name when desired. Found on http://www.scrapalbum.com/pat9.htm

Valentines
The colourful scraps were used by Valentine makers to add a touch of colour to the embossed lace paper. Romantic sentiments could be discovered hidden beneath the central scrap motif.