I just can't seem to resist the charm of old paper. Victorian post cards, trade cards, lithographs, books with beautiful illustrations, old advertisements, ephemera, handwritten letters, and old greeting cards. Just a few short months ago the papers were taking over my craft room, so I parted with much of my personal collection at my shop and on Etsy. I guess that just gave me an excuse to collect it twice as much, because now I am searching it out again.
Recently I have been lucky enough to get an old scrapbook full of Victorian die cuts and old postcards at auction. This past weekend at the Hwy 11 show which runs through my town, I spotted more old scrapbooks and went running over to inspect. This dealer had three boxes of old papers. Needless to say, I hammered out a deal with him and bought it all (I'm hopeless!). For days I have been rummaging through it and have run across a few treasures - souvenir papers from a trip to Paris - old postcards - WWII photos - letters and old envelopes - and a really enjoyable and relaxing trip visiting the past, sharing where these people went on their life journeys, their experiences, and their memories. Knowing that every little piece of paper they kept was important to them makes me want to preserve it for future generations. Many of the papers and travel postcards I will sell on EBay to other collectors. I have put quite a bit of it aside for Etsy for the artists, and am proud to say I have only kept a few dozen... some are pictured here. I think my favorite is the Uncle Sam fellow with the turkey, an odd mixture of the 4th of July and Thanksgiving!
You are free to use any of these images for your artwork. Be sure to visit my Flikr photos for more wonderful antique images available to you!
My studio (i.e. corner of my bedroom) is crammed full of boxes of bits and pieces of everything imaginable. I end up with alot of old or antique items that are missing parts, are broken, or just need a facelift to become a new treasure. Take the angel tree pick above, she was missing her head, so I replaced it with a paper image for instant altered art with a vintage twist. The angel below broke off of a ceramic tree, but she can stand up on her dress, all she needed was something to hold in her hands. These two things took me less than 15 minutes to turn from trash to treasure! My motto is, if it catches your eye or you love it, and you think you might use it in a project later, SAVE IT! Wonderful places to find these cast offs cheap are thrift shops, yard sales, flea markets, auctions, and yes even antique stores, because if an item isn't perfect the dealer is going to have to mark it low to get rid of it. As we all know, one woman's trash is another woman's treasure! 
