Rainy Sunday (again!) so I caught up with some card-making. The inspiration for vintage-style greetings cards was a big pack of old wrapping paper that I picked up in a charity shop for free (does nobody else want chintzy relics?) In the pack were some fantastically kitsch paper patterns – fluffy white kittens, wearing top hats, sitting in champagne glasses, was a particular highlight. Some gorgeous painted floral paper too. I did another round of the charity shops and picked up a few old women’s magazines (from 1939, 1966 and 1977) and bought a few old Jackie annuals on Ebay. Voila: I was ready to assemble all of this cultural flotsam into something new and shiny.
I absolutely love the out-dated bizarreness that is dotted around these old magazines – in 1939 a chunky knit was a ‘recipe for charm’. 1970’s Jackie contained casual, friendly warnings not to fall in love with ‘married men’, accompanied by a picture of a man with shades and a moustache looking like, frankly, an ominous prospect (was this really aimed at teenagers?) In another 1970s magazine I found an alarmingly blithe ‘Are You Poisoning Your Family?’ nestled amongst the cooking pages. Hours of happy reading.
Amy Jardine 