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The Vintage Shelf: Decorative Books

2/21/2018

Personally, I think a shelf full of colorful books is one of the most inviting objects in a room, the first thing which catches my eye. I recently read an article from the Wall Street Journal about decorating with books. The focus of the article was based on recent interior decorating trends of turning the books around on the shelf so you just see the pages, backwards books.

The idea behind the trend is keep the color scheme of the room/area neutral in colors for a more calming minimalist effect. Personally, I find myself itching to turn all those books around to see what they are! But to each their own. You could choose books with white pages, cream colored pages or even decorative paper edges, like the gold gilt. Or possibly old dictionaries with the cut out tabs would suit you.

If you don't like a rainbow of color for you book shelf, an option is to find books with spines all the same color. Or you could choose 2 different colors and add other vintage goodies as accents. It doesn't need to be the whole shelf or several shelves. A grouping of 3 or 4 books makes a beautiful decorative display. Stack them, tie a piece of jute around them, add some greenery, whatever makes your idea of a warm inviting display.

References

The Great Bookshelf Debate, Wall Street Journal

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Hallmark Christmas Ornaments

11/4/2017

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Christmas tree ornaments didn't really become popular in America until around the 1840's. Immigrants from Germany and England were bringing over their ornaments with them. Ornaments available at that time were mostly hand blown glass ornaments and German hand cast lead ornaments.

Check out these antique German ornaments from RelicRecord.com

In the 1880's, F.W. Woolworth stocked his stores with German ornaments. By 1890, he was selling $25 million worth of ornaments for 5 or 10 cents each.

Corning, was the first American company to jump on the Christmas ornament bandwagon. By using a machine that was meant to produce light bulbs, Corning was making over 2000 Christmas balls a minute. This was in 1939.

Check out this Christmas ornament advertisement from The Corning Museuem of Glass.

In 1973, Hallmark joined the Christmas ornament fun and introduced their Keepsake Collection. In doing so, Hallmark introduced a new tradition of Christmas decorating along with a new collectible. The first collection consisted of 18 ornaments total, 6 glass and 12 made of yarn. These ornaments were only available for a short amount of time. Since then, Hallmark has introduced over 100 series of ornaments and over 8000 different Keepsake ornaments.