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Thursday, January 19, 2012

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

OK, not minds, plural, but one mind wanted to know about my scrapbooks, so I'm glad to oblige.  As a blogger, I'm quite uncertain what direction to take my blog.  When I look at the statistics, the most popular posts are a jumble.  One is a simple how-to, but the next is one of those rambling jobbies, where very little information is shared.  I know it would be easier if my entries were just straight forward little how-tos for those looking for the information and I do have those. But I know a lot of you already know these things and are just friends visiting, so there's those for you dears.  Guess I'll just amble along writing what I feel at the moment and not analyze it too much.  Maybe Hope and Thrift won't be the most popular blog out there, but who cares?  Didn't start this thing to become the next Pioneer Woman anyway.  So when someone writes and requests some information like how to can water, or how to make sauerkraut, I'm  all but too happy to share.  So today it's scrapbooks.

As I've mentioned about a gazillion  times, I live in a tiny house, so I don't have room to store all those pretty magazines.  So instead I snip out all the information that I want to keep and paste them into cheap little photograph books or even notebooks.  I divide the clippings into several categories; decorating ideas, handicrafts idea (including sewing and fashion), winter, spring/summer, and autumn.

Above is the decorating one.  It include pictures for little vignettes, interesting room arrangements, and sweet little quotes about home.  One of the things that I've noticed is that by having all those clippings in one spot, I was able to get a real sense of the  style I like in decor.  Which in turn saves me a lot of time, because  now when I see a pretty design that I'd like to replicate, I know that  while it's pretty, it's just not my style, so I needn't waste my money on it.

Here's the winter book:

Lots of  toasty recipes and gift-giving ideas in this one.  Plus lots of pictures of snowy scenery and poetry.

The autumn notebook is my favorite.  So many beautiful images of trees and cozy rooms.  And the poets wrote some of their best  thoughts about this season.  Guess everyone is enchanted by it.

spring/summer notebook
In this one there's lot of garden design ideas,  planting information and recipes that use all the fresh produce that we grow and is available during those seasons.

These scrapbooks are like having a compendium  of all your favorite pages from the best magazines.  It's a nice little hobby for a quiet winter's day, when ennui sets in.  Plus they take up very little space.  And people enjoy them.  Whenever I leave them out around visitors, they inevitably will sit downand start perusing them.

My favorite magazines are the old Victorias, Mary Englebreits and those rare Mare Emmerling issues.  I'm fortunate that our local thrift store has a good selection of these old magazines.  Magazines are so expensive now days!  I get just as much satisfaction from the old ones.  And it's fun to see how the tastes have changed over the years.  Some of those old Country Living and Country Homes magazines!  Oh my!  Seems that the way we used to decorate was to hang everything on the walls.  There wasn't an empty wall space.  But now it seems the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction.  The rooms look so sparse that they'd make a Shaker shudder!   Oh!  Another surprising source of good cheap reading  material is your local antique store.  You can purchase back issues of those great old magazine there for a dollar or two.  A lot cheaper than the five or six a brand new magazine cost today.

34 comments:

  1. I just love this. What a beautiful way to catalog your style and whims. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful idea.

    Blessings, Debbie

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    1. Hi Debbie! When we were cleaning out my parent's house, we found an old album from one of our family's old bachelor friends. It was such fun to look at the circa 1910s cartoons and stories. And it gave us great insight into what the gentleman was like as a young man. Some of those old cartoons were really funny!

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  2. I also love this idea! It's one I've wanted to start for awhile but just haven't done yet. I don't know why as it's, like you said, a great way to see what you like and have it in one place. I really like all your books, especially the ones by season...brilliant! :o)

    I enjoy your blog as well as those that share their everyday lives...the down-to-earth ones...so keep writing about whatever strikes you. :o)

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    1. Thanks Sandra! I think the easiest way to categorize those beautiful magazines is by the seasons. Except in our area spring is such an iffy month, it's either winter or summer, so I combined those two seasons. Actually spring is about one second long! How are things across the lake?

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  3. Thanks for the pics! You did a great job...they are so much nicer to look at then magazines (and no advertisements!! even Taste of Home started ads, :( and I noticed the Birds and Blooms switched to cheaper paper, less colorization. (The main reason I subscribed was because of no ads originally!) I guess I actually do a lazy version of what you did, with my older recipes...I kept only the pages I liked the recipe, which oftentimes ends up being only one or two per magazine. I wonder what home styles/decorating will be next! love,andrea

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    1. Hi Andrea! Some of those magazines like Woman's Day and Family Circle have so much advertising it's hard to find the articles! Remember when the women's magazines were nice, with short stories and actual instructions that you didn't have to send away for? Ah the good old days! I see a lot of the 60s colors coming back in style. Probably influenced by Mad Men. The younger folks are quite taken with that show and its style. Living through it the first time, I'd never have dreamed it would come back in style, but now looking back, I can see there was a certain flair to the era. Just hope those macrame crafts don't make a reappearance! Ha!

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  4. Mine looks the same...different pictures - well - maybe not so much! :)

    I'll continue to do this until the subscriptions run out and then I'll have this for posterity. Thank you for sharing my friend :-)

    m.

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  5. I wouldn't be surprised if we did have the same pictures Maria! I've let a lot of subscriptions fall by the wayside too. Now just two that have a lot of gardening, self-sufficiency info, Backwoods Home and Countryside. Still will continue to buy my magazines from the thrift shops though. At 25 cents each or 5 for a dollar, they are worth it for the entertainment value to me!

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  6. Your notebooks are wonderful, I like how you have different ones for different subjects, thanks for showing pictures. What a good idea to get magazines from thrift shops, I love magazines, but have to avoid the magazine aisle at the grocery store as much as possible because they have gotten so spendy. I was eyeing one the other day, some pretty gardening/decor one, thankfully I looked at the price, $9.99!! now way. I do love looking at old back issues just as much as the new issues, my grandma will occasionally send me home with magazines from the 70's and 80's which are so fun to look through. Fun project!

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    1. Your grandma sounds fun, April! A lady gave me a bunch of old home magazines from the 50s. Oh boy! Were they ever fun to look through. And the recipes and tips were so down to Earth. I know what you mean about the prices, on more than one occasion I slipped a magazine into my cart then looked at the price and put it back.

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  7. I like blogs where people write whatever is on their minds, or they feel like posting. I follow a few one-dimensional blogs, but I don't read them frequently for relaxin' with a cup of coffee. Your scrapbooks look pretty cool, I know I'd enjoy looking through them. My fav magazine right now is House Beautiful. Totally agree with you about the sparsity in decorating trends right now.

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    1. I forgot all about good ole House Beautiful. It reminds me of Christmas in Connecticut. Like a lot of sophisticated people write and edit it over cocktails at the Stork Club or something. I keep think of the character in the movie saying "We at Better Baby" in that oh so elegant accent. Is this making any sense? Don't you love the name of those magazines? Good Housekeeping (should be, don't you think?) Better Homes and Gardens (what? not the best?) House Beautiful (I should think they weren't bothering with those ugly houses). They just sound so fun retro!

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  8. I love your scrapbooks! I keep all of my old Country Living and Country Home mags. But, now, I'm more attracted to the Early Homes and Prim mags. I'm becoming a bit disappointed by Country Living lately...too much like Martha Stewart's Living. And you're right...expensive. I enjoy looking at old magazines to search for the latest things I'm interested in.
    Hugs,
    Courtney

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    1. I love prims too! Have you ever seen the house tour editions of Country Sampler magazine? Truly drool worthy! I keep those editions.

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  9. You are the Queen! Thank you for sharing! What a fine idea! I love the various categories... adore the photos... and think it is a marvelous way to keep up with ideas. I just get overwhelmed with this, but I think you have dangerously kick started me!

    As for the blog, it is written for you and we get share in that! Write what you love and think. Hang the rest!

    Sending you hugs from the artic South!

    Matty

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    1. You're welcome Matty! Any more ideas for posts? It was a good jumping off point for everyone to discuss their favorite magazines. That's what I love about this blog. Everyone shares in the discussion. I'd say the best part about it is the comments. Bitter cold here today. Worried about our stray cats. Wish I could catch them and bring them inside

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    2. I like what Matty said about your blog being "written for you and we get to share in that." It is. And we do!!! Thanks!!

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  10. I was wallowing in quilt magazines several years ago. A friend at the quilt shop suggested I buy the clear plastic page holders that can be placed in a snap/ring binder. I clip out the photos and instructions for the projects I might make [I should live so long!] and keep them in the plastic sleeves in the binder. I look sometimes at several of the home dec books I kept from the 80's--all that flowery wallpaper and tons of ruffly pillows on the beds! It seemed that all the featured homes had huge collections of vintage items that needed a big display area--and a fairly large budget for the collecting.
    They make for interesting reading during the times when I just need to sit still with a mug of tea and something which won't tax my brain.

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    1. Isn't it funny MM? I'm sure that at the time, we probably thought those rooms were the most beautiful rooms ever! That's why I find it amusing the way people spend so much money to update their kitchens with those expensive counter tops, brushed steel appliances and nickle plated hardware. One day someone will look at them and say they are so 2000s, just like at the time we thought Harvest Gold appliances and those bright orange formica counter tops were the height of style!

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  11. Your scrapbooks are lovely ! I must follow your example, I have a lot of beautiful old magazines that I don't want to throw away, but my house is, like yours, not big (and we are 8!)
    And in France too, magazines are very expensive (and full of ads !)

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    1. It certainly takes up a lot less space Christiane! Only a few inches on the bookshelf as opposed to boxes upon boxes in the attic. There's eight in your family? That's wonderful! I miss having a home filled to the rafters with children! I miss baking cookies every day for the troops of kiddos that tramped through our kitchen. Treasure these days!

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  12. HI Jane! I love your scrap book idea. I do something like that myself, only I use the magazine pictures to illustrate quotations. I have three big scrap books finished and have the pictures already cut out for two or three more. It is very relaxing to just sit and cut out pictures and glue them in. I also have another folder for special crochet or knitting patterns. These I cut out and put into plastic sleeves with three hole punch and store them in a big white note book.

    Your blog is one of my favorites Jane. I know what you mean about finding direction, I wonder sometimes too if my blog is "all over the place". But I think that is what I like the most about your blog, it is about such a variety of topics, it is always a surprise and is never boring. I love your "how to" posts, and the posts that teach imaginative ways to use and make do, but I also enjoy it when you write about your cottage, Georgie or your day trips and your knitting. I feel like we get to see you as a complete person, and I really enjoy that. Have a lovely day ahead! Delisa :)

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    1. It is fun isn't it Delisa? Kind of like when we were little and would cut out paper dolls. I have a folder of knitting patterns too. I don't think one lifetime will be long enough to finish all of the projects I'd like to do! Thank you for the kind words about my blog! Guess I'll just carry on in the same direction, getting too old and set in my ways! PS: I don't think your blog is too all over the place at all. I know when I visit it I will be inspired in some manner. Whether a lovely quote or poetry or one of your beautiful projects that makes me want to do better with my knitting!

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  13. I like your notebooks, how fun. I love decorating magazines, and yes, the cost is horrendous-I've been known to purchase a few that are soooo over-priced. I don't let the husband see that. I try to control myself and check out what I can from the library. I'm thinking of subscribing to Country Living and Better Homes and Gardens--got a fantastic rate-- $8 and $6, really, you can't beat that unless you can find them at the library--but then, you can't cut them up, can you...

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    1. Yeah, subscribing really does save the dough! Our little library doesn't have much,so I rarely go there, but we used to live by one of the best in the state. Now that's an evening of cheap entertainment! When it was really hot outside, the boys and I would spend the entire day there. They evening had a fantastic playroom for the little ones. And lots of fun activities for the school-aged children. Loved that library!

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  14. I've done a bit of this Jane but not nearly as nicely organized as you have. I love the idea of organizing by seasons. I'm going to try that. The best part is that it gives me a reason to buy Brand New Notebooks. I'm not sure why that is so fun - but it always gives me a big mental boost!! (-:

    We had a bit of snow yesterday and our ground is finally covered - for the most part. Much prettier this way.

    Enjoy your weekend!!
    Sandy

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    1. I love to buy new notebooks, too--or really almost any office supplies. I think it reminds me of those days of childhood when we got all new school supplies just in time for the new school year. Those empty pages, those pencils with untouched erasers--what mystery and promise they held. Weeks later, they were just old school notebooks, full of notes and scribbles; pencils were sharpened down and had half chewed erasers--not nearly as fun or interesting as that promise of who-knew-what adventure that we imagined over our shiny new school supplies!

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    2. Boy! I must have gone to wrong school! Never got excited about it starting. Buying notebooks to me just meant the end of my freedom for nine months!

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  15. Hi Sandy! If I could get a mental boost from buying notebooks, I should buy one every week! Ha! I'm starting to do that thing my mom always used to do, where I forget people's names and get frustrated. Oh well, she's 86 and doesn't have Alzheimer's, so I guess it isn't a serious thing. The world looks better withan icing of snow doesn't it?

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  16. Good morning Jane.. thank you for visiting me yesterday! I too love old Victoria magazine and have a great time going over the collection I have. Take care..

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  17. Jane, this inquiring mind wants to know how you got the "reply" feature on a blogger blog. My blogs are blogger blogs and I don't have a "reply" feature. Do tell!

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    1. Hi Charlene! I wish I could tell you how. I was just goofing around with my blog, adding a second one for a list of all the blogs I like to visit, and when I came back to this one, there it was! I think if you do any updating to your blog, it shows up. Anyone out there know how? Feel free to chime in!

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  18. Dear Jane,

    You're so organized! I have scrapbooks just like yours, but mine are a hod podge of different scenes (although I do start out with grand visions of organizing them.). I cut out lots of cute pictures, then slap them in a sketchbook or thrift store scrapbook (the old ones with brown paper) while Rebecca is napping or otherwise distracted. :)

    I love the old magazines, too. Now if only my thrift store had Victorias!

    Love,

    Marqueta

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