When my elderly aunts moved from their home to a new retirement facility in September, my father and I were charged with the responsibility of moving their furniture and getting the house ready to sell. It was an arduous task that took more than a month to complete. Among the tasks was cleaning out the basement and going through their storage items. One of the finds was an enormous box filled with my Aunt Ann's collection of postcards - ones she had received from friends abroad or ones she had picked up on her own travels as souvenirs. My aunts had truly travelled the world: Egypt, Greece, England, France, Italy, Spain, the Caribbean, all over the US and Canada, Lebanon, Israel, Mexico... Their friends had obviously travelled too, given the huge assortment of postcards we found, covered in stamps from all over the world.

When my Aunt Ann told me she didn't want the postcards anymore she offered them to me. I jumped at the chance to have them!

I've since framed a selection of the black-and-white ones and mounted them over my desk in my home office. You can see the results below. Many of the postcards are dated from the '50s and '60s. The oldest one received was to my great grandmother, Mary, in 1941 from a relative of hers in Lebanon. These are treasures!

I framed the faces of the black and white postcards in one frame and, beside it, the written-on backs of postcards in the other frame. I like seeing the fancy stamps and all the different styles of handwriting from pepole I never met who wrote to my aunts. One of them is from a member of the Canadian Senate.

Some close-ups of the postcards: from glorious architecture in Russia to a simple motel bedroom in Florida.

Different scrawl from different people from all over the world makes an interesting collage.

I've had this old baluster my entire life and it, in turn, has had many lives. It was salvaged from the house where my father grew up prior to a renovation. It likely dates from the 1920's. It spent a while in my parents' basement during the early '70s and when I was just a year old it was put on show again. My father painted it a rainbow of colours and fitted it with a base he constructed himself so that it could stand freely, without the support of any railings. It was placed near my crib, and then my little bed, and it had a place in my childhood rooms, from house to house to house, until about the age of 13 when I considered it 'too juvenile' for my bedroom, which was painted a serious gray at the time. It went back into my parents' basement for a little rest.


It was only last year that I decided to reclaim it. It needed to be sanded down and repainted. I chose a dark cream tone, since neutrals work well in just about any scheme and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.

I like the idea that I will have this 'artifact' from my father's childhood home in any home I live in. I also like the sculptural, architectural detail it lends to the room it finds itself in. In a traditional setting, it blends right in. In a modern setting, it adds a counterpoint of interest to cleaner lines.

The new cream colour on the baluster is a marked contrast to the rainbow-bright tones of its youth. The base, below, is an ingenious construction devised by my father to support the baluster.
The baluster now finds itself tucked neatly in the corner of my living room, where it stands in subtle contrast to its surroundings.

Since I am at home sick today, I thought I'd read the dictionary. Now that most of us get our information online these days, I thought it would be pertinent to remind myself what REAL research is about. All of those high-minded ideals went out the window, however, when a flurry of pressed leaves collected last fall, sandwiched between the pages and a few well-trimmed pieces of paper towel, came flooding out into my lap. I had gathered them last year during a trip to Quebec City, stuck them in the dictionary on my return and just completely forgot about them.

I got giddy when I realized I had a stack of new white frames that I had recently purchased (with not much idea as to what I'd use them for) and the little craft project that followed could not be stopped once the inspiration took over. I decided to frame a pair of the leaves, which were perfectly flat and completely free of moisture, one year after their first pressing. It's ideal to press them in a flower press, not books, since the pages of the book could potentially warp from the moisture or stain. But I made sure to layer them well with paper towel and there were no casualties.

I whipped out the craft paper (I have three large 'books' of various designs) and started planning. I tried the leaves, which are all of reddish hue, on various types of paper: calming neutrals and warm oranges, even some outlandish patterns like green with brown polka-dots.

I finally settled on a chartreuse-toned paper with a faux-bois pattern. It's modern and goes well with my decor. Green and red are also complementary colours and the crimson leaves stand out nicely against the green, which I really liked. I picked my two favourite leaves from the bunch I had, laid them out first to make a nice arrangement and then glued them with craft glue to the paper.
I have three other white frames and I'm not sure whether I'll make a gallery of leaves or just do the one frame. I'm also not sure where to put it yet, but I have a few ideas. The nice thing about these kinds of projects is that they're easy to do, inexpensive, and can be as temporary as you want them to be: a few days, a month, a year, or several years.

I should really get sick more often.