I love vintage postcards and fold out souvenir accordion postcards books are the best! I picked up this little lot at an estate sale this weekend. Sixty five little books of geographic and cultural history, all for just over five dollars!
They seem to vary in age from the early 1920’s to the sixties and seventies. Some have prepaid postage for 1 cent! What a bargain!
The colours on the postcards are vivid and some more garish than others. The rocks in the Garden of the Gods postcards are all bright orange and the Seattle skies are all the same fabulous blue!
The Seattle folder is full of pictures showing the sights of the region – ‘today and yesterday’, the ‘today’ photos are from around 1914 I think. The ‘yesterday’s are from around 1878-1900. What a great comparison.
I bought the cards with a view to painting or drawing on them, but I am not sure I can bring myself to ‘deface’ most of them. I will probably copy them and work over the copies. I have a couple of doubles, so maybe I can use one as an art journal and keep one.
Sometimes I have this problem with old books, I buy them to art in and then when I look through them, I feel bad using them as a sketchbook. I usually get the paints out in the end though!
Do you use found paper and books to make art in? Ever have any guilt about it?
Happy Wednesday x
Clare Davis Etheridge 
oh, these are so great. i am a huge fan of vintage cards and letters of all kinds )
They are the best aren’t they! I love the postcards which have been written on in about 1935!
OH MY!!!!! LOVE!!!!!
Thanks Edie, I like them too much to draw on them!!
Wow, those rocks would be scary if they were that colour in real life. These cards are gorgeous! I love the mermaid show! I like your use of the word “art” as a verb: “to art in”. I can’t bring myself to cut up or draw in old books except for atlases.
Ha! So true. Yes I use ‘art’ as a verb a lot! I like to draw in atlases too.
They are really beautiful, aren’t they?
I have quite a few (and my husband has heaps) from travelling. While not strictly vintage, a number a vintage style. But I can’t with out what to do with them (I don’t want to paint over them!) Do you have any thoughts.?
Sounds like a great collection. I think I might photocopy some, maybe onto watercolor paper, so I can paint them without guilt.