Vintage and ancient hand diagrams

I've always loved hands, and I have a small collection of hand shaped items. Today I'm sharing hand ephemera, including palmistry diagrams and ancient  illustrations of the hand.

Ancient frontispiece from book about metoposcopy (analyzing  the lines of the forehead)

Napoleon's hand, in sepia

Napoleon's hand, in black and white

Diagram showing the position of Zodiac signs in the hand

Palmistry diagram by Holmes W. Merton

Hope some of these diagrams will come in handy for you.  (oooh, that was bad. Sorry!)

Vintage gameboard graphics

Games are always fun as themes for collage and assemblage projects and greeting cards.  Today's images are vintage game boards from a collection called 52 Variety Game Chest, which featured a game for every week in the year.


Click on the image twice to see the largest image file.

Put n' Take gameboard

Alphabetics game board

Fisherman's Catch game board

Enjoy!

Ain't nothing like the real thing, baby!

Vintage ephemera is my favorite material for making collages, adding interest to journal pages, and crafting unique greeting cards. For some projects, we are happy with scans we print ourselves, but sometimes only the genuine vintage item will do!

I am involved in a wonderful online journal class called "Remains of the Day," taught by Mary Ann Moss, who writes the Dispatch from LA blog (link in the sidebar). She encourages class members to use real vintage ephemera in our journals, and I've had my collection spread out everywhere while making my ROD journal.

An artist friend of mine saw my vintage goodies, and she has been nagging urging me to package some of my "real" vintage stuff for sale. I finally succumbed to the pressure. At Bonnie's Best, have a limited supply of the first ephemera pack, including the collage parts pictured above. 

The ephemera package includes a collectible vintage Hershey's Syrup playing card, playing cards with bird images, Fostoria certificate from the 1930s, an unused Cherry Blossoms soda label, page from vintage FAA book of aircraft approach diagrams, lovely foreign text pages, music pages, pages from a 40-year-old postage stamp directory, Bingo card, tickets, oversized robin's egg blue and salmon shipping tags, a vintage practice target, printed inventory tag, plus a few newer items. Every piece is the real thing -- no scans or color copies. If you're interested, here's a link to purchase. 

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming --- there will be more freebies to download in my next post.

Birds

I am in so in love with birds, I was thrilled when my husband gave me  a box of birdseed for Christmas.  I love waking up to their song, watching them at our feeders and seeing them in flight. I wish I could draw them, but because I can't, I have to settle for printed images of birds.  In case you like birds as much as I do, I've scanned some vintage bird images for you.

This bird, I'm told, is a long-tailed flycatcher.  This gorgeous creature really should have a more beautiful name.  This image was printed on one of those notepads people used to keep beside the telephone -- perhaps in a built-in telephone nook in a home's center hall. The picture has yellowed over time, but I think that adds to the charm.  

Right-facing bluebird

Left-facing bluebird

These sweet bluebirds are from a vintage greeting card printed on vellum and glistening with glitter.  The cover of the card folds inward. You have to open both sides to read the message.  The images are beautiful when paired, but I separated them so they can be used alone or as a pair.

Coming soon: more birds, butterflies and borders.

Enjoy!

Vintage bridge tallies

Bridge was a BIG part of my parents' social life when they were young. My 81-year-old mother still plays bridge at least once a week. I'm always on the lookout for bridge-related ephemera, and I recently found a wonderful collection of bridge tallies at my favorite flea market.  


From the front, you'd think the diecut dog and cat below were vintage baby gift tags or children's birthday party invitations, but the backs show a tally of scores from a bridge game played (by adults, presumably) in 1929.  

These next bridge items are quite different.  Below are covers of bridge score books, this time with an Arabian Nights flavor.  A popular new edition of Arabian Nights was published in 1932, so I'm thinking these score books may be from the 1930s.

If anyone would like the book covers cropped to remove the outer border, let me know.  I figure most people have art programs they can use for cropping, but if not, I will be glad to post cropped versions.

As always, you can click on the images to enlarge them, then right-click to save them to your computer. 

Enjoy!