Reinventing an Antique Photo Album

 

 

Today I wanted to share a bit of reinventing that resulted in the salvage of an antique celluloid covered photo album.  The album came to me with the cover in tact, but the binding of the album and the pages were pretty tattered.  I actually used the pages as picture matting, and tucked the album cover away.

 

This is what it looked like.

Fortunately I noticed that the album cover was just the right size to cover a smaller size collapsible file I also had on hand.  By covering a piece of cardboard for a new spine, and then bending (Scoring first with a straight edge and a razor blade) the card board sections that remained from the back of the original binding, and then gluing the new decorative spine in place.

Last of all, I glued the album covers to the outside covers of the collapsible file.

I now plan to used the fancified file to store family mementos.  Thanks for stopping by.

Antique Valentines and Paper Weights

How fun it is to look through a stack of vintage Valentines, and wonder about the original givers and receivers.  I always think of the decorated shoe boxes we made to receive our stashes of valentines from school friends.  The Valentines made in the 30's are always my favorites, I think they are so cheerful ... and they are often heart shaped which makes them perfect for placing in heart shaped glass paper weights.  Though since I have no desire to  cut up Valentines from my collection, I have found that its easy to find the type of old Valentines that I like on Graphics Fairy, which also makes it easy to print them off in the sizes I need.

Above are three paper weights with reprints of vintage Valentines.  I just use clear Tacky Glue, as glue goes on the face of each valentine to adhere it to the glass paper weights.

 

 The honey comb Valentines are earlier, dating to the turn of the last century... 

 

... and all this vintage Valentine goodness tucked away in a corner of my parlor just makes me smile!! Happy Valentines friends!