happy valentine's day!

valentine's day ends in about 15 minutes, but you know, it's the thought that counts. i actually sat down at the computer to write several blog posts hours ago, but between the distracting powers of facebook, a fabulous long chat with a friend, a heart breaking but also heart opening film (which i'll post about tomorrow), and way too many links to be checked out via bloglovin, here i am, half asleep, but determined to post some valentine love before going to bed.


so here are a few vintage valentines from my ephemera collection. if you'd like to see them bigger, or if you'd like to save them yourself, you can click on them to go to flickr. and you are TOTALLY welcome to download them, because it's very very frustrating when people upload vintage ephemera to flickr but don't allow downloading. it's completely illogical, and makes me very cranky. but that's getting off the point. (though if you know WHY people do that, please advise!)

anyway, aren't these freaking cute? i <3 vintage valentines.



and here are a few antique valentines - most of the postcards i have are from 1900-1910, so these ones most likely are too, but i can't actually remember if they were postmarked or not... several of the postcards actually have writing on them, i'll update flickr tomorrow with any info i find on them.

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate, and Happy Day-That-Every-Freaking*-Thing-Is-Closed to the rest of you!

Wishing you a year full of creativity, love, inspiration and truth.







(if you'd like to see the rest of the vintage christmas postage stamps and christmas seal stamps that i've scanned and posted, they're in the ephemera folder on my flickr account)



*did you appreciate my attempt to make this post pg, for the sake of the season? ;)

new ephemera packs added to nimbleheart.etsy.com, and today's prizes!

while gathering up goodies for today's giveaway prizes, i bundled up a whole bunch of ephemera and goodies and listed them on etsy! i'm so proud of myself, i've been saying that i was going to do this for ages!

i did ledger sheet packs -

10 pages with graph-like lines. 7 different page in the 10, the majority are ledger sheets. the largest sheet is folded for shipping.






Fun and Games packs -

over 60 pieces!









Sheet Music Packs that are apparently too big to fit in envelopes, so i haven't listed them yet!

12 sheets of vintage sheet music, including one handwritten page





and my favourite, but also the most time consuming by far, the Book Pack

over 40 pages from books varying from first aid, plays, hymnals, bibles, dictionaries, textbooks, encyclopedias and more. includes french, polish, german, russian and more.








For Today's Giveaway prize, I've put together two ephemera and papercrafting bundles. In addition, each bundle will ALSO include one of each of the bundles above! I think i'm going to regret my generosity when it comes time to ship them.... ;)

The Prize Bundles are pretty much the same, with just a few variations. Things like playing cards are obviously different, and the info typed on the catalogue cards, the words on the German/Russian dictionary pages, the images in the slides, the holes in the player piano paper etc. in addition, one set includes a 7 gypsies walnut ink tube, and the other includes the glitter that Megan from the Upstart Crow donated.

Bundle 1





Bundle 2!






after going through so much stuff yesterday, i'm super inspired to play with it all!


but not today! can you believe that i haven't even found the time to enter any of the other giveaways? so silly!

whew!

and it's over. thank goodness! i love christmas, but every year i say i'll start earlier so that it's not as stressful, and every year i fail dismally!

i know i'm terribly behind, what with christmas stress and feeling so crappy this month, but hopefully i'll be able to catch up soon!

once all the stress was dealt with and the family fights were settled, it was a very good christmas. lots of spoiling, lots of laughter, and lots of yummy food! i posted some recipe cards that i made last year, with a few of our family recipes on them. mom made the cheese ball on christmas eve, i'm excited to dig into it tonight! her cheese ball is amazing.

i need to make more cards with a few more of our favourites, like the amazing jello salad she makes for dinner, and the banana cream pie we always have for desert (pah on pumpkin, that's for thanksgiving!). considering that i'm allergic to dairy, christmas is very filled with it, and i can't resist eating everything. my birthday is only a few days before christmas, and every year i request my aunt's no-bake cheesecake for desert, filled with cream cheese and whipped cream!

everyone seemed to really like the gifts i bought them, which is always gratifying. i was really happy with my choices this year. i got spoiled too, an art piece for my studio, a decidedly yummy looking book of cupcake recipes (root beer float cupcakes anyone?), a vintage snowglobe in my stocking (snowglobe LOVE!), a gorgeous teardrop shaped pendant of lava rock, a bunch of craft books that are currently snowed in but i'll get soon, money from relatives (which is awesome, cause my serger died and NEEDS servicing!), and my brother's going to spend an entire day helping me clean my studio. i'm determined that one day i will have it completely clean!

so yes, a very good christmas. this was apparently the first time in 100 years that every place in canada had snow for christmas, and ohhh, did we have snow! we had at least 2 and a half feet, though it's condensed down a bit since, as the weather's warmed up. we're usually lucky to get a few inches in january or february! though it's been a royal pain in the butt, since we're not equipped to deal with snow here, i'm still loving it. it was a fabulous bonus present!


here's a belated wish for you all, and hopefully i'll have more eye candy up soon!





today is boxing day in canada, which means SALES SALES SALES! though i seriously contemplated going to the 40% off everything in the store sale at the scrapbooking store, i'm restraining myself, and leaving the shopping to other members of my family who are much more willing and able to stand in lines than i am! i may do some online shopping in the next few days, but we'll see. Leslie at Alpha Stamps will be posting sales and free giveaways daily on their blog, starting tomorrow, so i'll be watching that for sure!

in the meantime, about 7 or 8 years ago i kind of started my own tradition of cleaning/organizing on boxing day, so i'm going to start sorting through the giant box of papers in my bedroom... not so fun, but it'll be nice to be get rid of the box!

on the free side of things, Lisa Vollrath did her annual Holiday Printables Countdown again this year. I was so far behind on e-mails and such that i almost missed it, but they're still up right now! she doesn't leave them up much after christmas, so snag them now! and don't forget that they're not entirely free, they're linkware, so post a link before downloading!