i'm starting to feel a little better - just in time for my husband to catch the germs. my son has temporarily "moved" to my mum's, a kind offer of hers so we can get well again and don't have to be up and about so much keeping two kids happy and entertained. i really hope the little ones don't catch it.
but i actually wanted to talk about beautiful things:
i came across this page today and thought these truly vintage pages were just beautiful. some may be a little plain while others are little works of art. apparently even in the 19th century there was already some sort of "scrapbooking industry".
i'm not a scarpbooker myself, but i like to collect ephemera and scraps of pretty papers and packaging. i use them in collages, mixed media projects and books and albums that i make for others to use. (somehow i hardly ever manage to use my own handmade books.)
then i read about the tradition of valentine's cards and found this
and thought: "they don't make them like this any more." this card was made by Esther Howland around 1870. she is considered to be "the mother of the american valentine". if you click on the link and then the image of the card in the article, you can zoom in and see the incredible detail of the paper lace used. i'd love to know how that was made back then...