Zine Love for Valentines Day

This Saturday I will be participating in the mini-zine fest that is AmaZine Day at the IPRC in Portland.

You should come by and shop for some zines and little handmade valentine gifts. You can also learn how to make a one page zine - a perfect valentine for that special friend. There will be readings and snacks, too.  Hope you can come by!

Are you starting to think about homemade Valentines for your beloved or best friend? Here's an idea. A few years ago I made a sort of mini-zine for the mister.

I used vintage wallpaper as the cover and hand wrote each page. It was pretty cute and fun to do.

I also have a Pinterest board full of Valentines ideas. Take a look at that if you need some inspiration.

And rounding off the zine love theme, I want to point you in the direction of this lovely post from Magpie Librarian who recently got a Figure 8 Body Love pack. So fun to see stuff like this. Thanks for the post, Magpie Librarian.

And just to round it off, I do have a nice selection of vintage Valentines in The Cedar Chest shop.

Happy Valentine Scheming!

Vintage Color Palettes - Monarchs of New York City

This vintage postcard shows a unique sophisticated color palette from around 1940. The R.C.A. building is now known as the G.E. building, the home of NBC and Rockefeller Center.

The hex color codes for this palette are from left to right: f7d35e, c4c1c1, df382d, f5b363

winter treats

Winter is the kind of thing most people don't like. Especially after the holidays are over. I like the quiet months of Janurary and Feburary - the bare trees, the grey skies, the need for cozy socks and warm foods. Although there is less produce at this time than during the summer, there are still some great things in season (though not local perhaps) that are a nice treat at this time.

Lately, I've been really into grapefruit, kiwi, meyer lemons, oranges and avocados. These are all in season somewhere and really inexpensive at the stores right now.

I made a lemon meyer bundt cake the other day. I used this recipe on Pinterest. I started a Pinterest of tested recipes. It shows the recipes I've actually done and my comments on them.

The last few days my lunch has been an open face avocado sandwich. Avocados are so good right now and cheap. This sandwich is super good. It satisfies the Southern California girl inside me who grew up eating avocados all the time and stealing lemons off of nearby trees. 

Let me break it down, in case you wanna create it yourself. 

Mestemacher 3 Grain Bread

Vegenaise Horseradish Mayo

Yellow Mustard

Artichoke Antipasto from Trader Joe's

Avocado

This Rosemary Garlic Pepper 

little salt

Delicious! 

a new year

Happy 2013! It's a new year and here in Portland it is sunny and clear, which makes it feel even more like a new year.

Do you make resolutions? Maybe you call them intentions or goals? I suspect that even people who claim they don't make them privately do a little. I don't see how a person can't with the end of the holidays and a new calendar year. It just seems to natural to think in new starts.

I like the To Resolve Project. A project where graphic designers create images (made for iphone backgrounds) illustrating their resolutions. Lots of great designs here. Maybe one will be a good reminder for you of what you want for 2013. Here are a few that I really liked:

Hope you have lots of Joy in 2013!

Merry Christmas!

Make your own Vintage Custom Christmas Card - Free Printable

I have several personalized Christmas cards from the 1940's-1960's. I love seeing the pictures chosen and the old vintage illustrations, many often handmade. I'm guessing that people bought them from a local photography studio. Some, of course, have clip art and were bought as a template from the photo stores or mail order companies.

I thought it would be fun to make these available to you to use to make your own "vintage" custom Christmas card (these are all actually flats). You could print them and send them or you could just use it as a web post or ecard.

This first card is from 1951 and it has spots for three pictures. It could be a family or kids or pets or a trio of friends. I love how sweetly the boy in this photo is holding his orange cat.

The first thing to do is to download the template. Make sure you download the original size.

Then crop the images you need in a squarish size and fit in squares (the size is roughly 300x300 in 300 dpi).  Then change your images to black and white, add a little sepia and a little noise so it matches the card more. Or you could leave them without the changes, it's up to you. 

I did a couple of samples to see how it looks. The first TV show I thought of that had three people is the show Ben and Kate. It's a new show this fall and I like it a lot. It's about a sister and brother living together and raising her daughter. So I did one for them. Then I did one of just pets because they're cute.

                                

The next one I did was meant for an image of a house or family picture. I like the idea of having an image of a house (of course, I would). Especially if you're sending it to people who know and miss that house or if you recently moved.

This card was sent in 1958 and there was a long message on the back saying the house had been in the family since 1884.  This card has deckle edges. You might want to crop them out and reproduce them on the computer or with fancy edge scissors. As long as the image you use is covering the white square it'll look good. That image size is 823x835 300 dpi. But, of course it could be a bit bigger.

The original size image is here.

Here is a sample that I did with an image that a friend recently posted of their new home. I did all the adjustments to this as with the other one.

I spent probably too much time on this, but you know, sometimes you want to do something just to do it. I hope that some of you might find some use for it. If you use it, I'd love to see what you do. 

Happy Holiday Season!

Vintage Color Palettes - Happier Holidays

Isn't this just the dreamiest mid-century holiday scene. I love this beautiful little advertising brochure for the Taylor Wine Company. You can see more of it on my blog post at The Cedar Chest. Pink was a real popular color for Christmas in the late 50's and early 60's. 

The hex color codes are from top to bottom: e53e71, f687a3, 8db2c1, 803f63

Fat Positive Gifts and Cards - from Vintage Postcards

It's hard to find art and products that show illustrations or images of women who aren't thin. I've written about this before and how I think it's really important to seek out fat positive body images and display them in your space. I decided this year to add to the small amount of offerings of fat positive images and since I am no artist, I decided to use my collection of vintage fat postcards.

I've been collecting fat comic postcards from the 1900's to the 1950's for many years now. There are many that are negative (most of these I don't buy), but also there are many that I see as positive. Postcards with sexy fat ladies with pin-up looks or smiling happy fat folks with positive messages. Did they mean them positively? I choose to think that they did. Usually the fat people are happy and sexy and the people around them seem to enjoy their company. These all seem to point to a positive message.  And you know, even if the artists who drew these images were trying to be negative, I don't care -  I am claiming them with pride as fat positive messages from the past! I refuse to think that vintage postcards that talk about the virtues of having more of a large lady to love was meant as anything other than the truth.

I've created a small line of cards and gifts using these vintage images. You can get greeting cards, magnets or prints (matted or unmatted) in the shop now. You also have the option of choosing which cards or print you want.  I hope you enjoy this collection of vintage fat images and that they can give your day a little lift.

New Crafty Item in Shop - "You're so good lookin'"

I've had this project in mind for almost a year now and I finally did it. It was fun to break out the gocco printer again. If you're not clear on why these hankies have this saying on it, let me me explain.

In a Seinfeld episode called "The Good Samaritan" George gets in some trouble for saying "God bless you" to a married woman who sneezes. While they are discussing it, Jerry says 

"If you want to make a person feel better after they sneeze, you shouldn't say 'God bless you.' You should say 'You're so good looking!'"

So, with this episode in mind (Um, yeah, I watch a lot of old sitcoms) I did some printing on these vintage handkerchiefs. It's a great inside joke for any Seinfeld friend and just a nice compliment for anyone. They can keep in their pocket or hang on the wall. Many of the hankies are so pretty it's a shame to hide them. You can find them in the shop now.

I hope you all like them, too. It's been so long since I've made a craft to sell, I'm nervous about it! 

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Vintage Color Palettes - Sheridan Road

Sometimes when I'm doing some task I come across a postcard that overwhelms me with the colors and I have to do a vintage color palette right away. That's what just happened to me when I found this linen postcard from Sheridan Road, a road that goes through many towns along Lake Michigan.

We've had lots of yellow and oranges this fall here in Portland, But, I haven't seen as many reds. Still it is, of course, beautiful. This color palette is the quintessential fall palette, the vintage part of it is the colors are a little dustier, a little different from what you would see now. If you're interested in the hex code numbers, they are from left to right: bb3610, d5c122, 8c2f2b, 455c2e