Recently, during my parents' move to a new house, we unearthed something quite astonishing and meaningful: three beautiful scrapbooks that had been put together by my great grandmother in England during the late 1940s and early 1950s. They were sent to Canada to my grandmother (my great-grandmother's daughter) in 1956 with a letter explaining that she wanted her grandchildren (my mother and my aunt) to have them.
Each page of each scrapbook is filled to brimming with the most perfectly-cut images. One book is devoted to flowers. One is devoted to houses. And the third is devoted to depictions of childhood: children, birthday cakes, etc. It was the flower book that most charmed me when my mother and I came across it in her new basement as we were opening boxes together. I thought it would be nice to share some of the pages with you. Below are some photos of the books. You can see how each flower was painstakingly cut out and pasted in a pleasing composition to the page. We are not sure what sort of adhesive my great grandmother used, but it has stood the test of time! Nothing is even remotely coming loose. Enjoy the photos!
4 comments:
Those are glorious!!! How wonderful!
Amazing. Such a family heirloom. I was curious as to the popularity of pointsettias and when did it start. A google search reveals a grower in CA seems to have "engineered" our desires. Sounds as if his marketing savvy included providing the flowers for television production studio sets, Genius! The time frame for all this may give you a clue as to when the scrapbook was compiled. Because I was a bit confused as to was the relative was a teen, college age or a Grandma with a vision when clipping the art. Also, the images--- what magazines periodicals, seed catalogs or wrapping paper?? What a treasure you have!
Thank you both! Anonymous, my great grandmother was in her 60s at the time these were made, during the late 1940s and early 1950s. The scrapbook was sent to Canada from England in 1956, so the images she cut out were published prior to that. My mom seems to think most of the cut outs were from English greeting cards she had accumulated over the years, but there are some magazine clippings and wrapping paper cut-outs as well, no doubt. It is indeed a treasure!
Amazing Andrew this is a great treasure, so beautiful
I showed your post to Nour and she was also amazed
Best wishes xx
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