Country by Mail - gorgeous Swedish style

We would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to one of our customers. We recently filled an order for Maria at countrybymail.se. Maria is the proprietor of a gorgeous Swedish web store by the same name. We were so thrilled when our products showed up on her site, because they were so beautifully styled and photographed. See for yourself:

These Take Cover Journals were selected for Maria's store with her soft color palette and French-influenced style in mind. We think they fit perfectly with her look!

Here are a couple of other Secret Leaves items on Maria's site:

And finally, some of her other beautiful items:

If you have not visited her site, do yourself a favor and take a look. And if you are reading this from Sweden...buy something for gosh' sake!

Sharon

Ephemera Eye Candy

This post is all about assorted ephemera eye candy. I know we are not the only ones who are ga-ga over this stuff. So all of you vintage ephemera junkies out there--enjoy!
This vintage baby book is on loan to us from my sister, Sheila. It has the most beautiful and incredible illustrations. There is a handwritten inscription on the inside cover that says,
"Dec. 25th, 1889, Our Little Ollie, Grandma Rich"

Stack of Scrap Journal pages ready to be bound. That is an old travel trunk in the background, complete with its original luggage labels. Inside it has a full set of bakelite-handled brushes, shoe horns, nail files, etc. How cool is that??!!!













Beautiful endpapers in an old prayer book
Some old daggeurotypes in my dining room cabinet. I love the shattered one. She is the first one I ever bought. Note the hand-tinting on her face.
Stack of Scrap Journals
Recipe for Layer Cake, Devil's food cake, White Solid Cake (solid cake?)
Stamp Note with old letters in the background
Detail of Chansons de Bilitis Scrap Journal cover

Cantilevered


Vintage sheet music and old keys on Ephemera Album covers
Cigar Box kit contents
French Hen nestled among recent ephemera finds
If you would like to see more assorted ephemera, I recently posted a bunch of new shots on our Flickr photo stream.
Sharon

Unique Boutique

Greetings all. I am finally getting around to posting about Unique Boutique, one of the shows Secret Leaves participated/is participating in this holiday season. The annual event is held at John Burroughs prep school in St. Louis and vendors are by invitation only. It was a good weekend for us: sales were brisk and it was extremely well-organized and well-run. Our thanks to organizer Bren Souers and all of the volunteers for a job well-done.

Our big sellers--as always--were Scrap Journals and Take Cover Journals. We also did quite well with a couple of new items: our Cigar Box Album Kit and our new Map Albums. We are still in the process of deciding whether to add these permanently to our offerings.

Unfortunately, my photos are not great, so you will have to trust me when I tell you that our display looked really good!

The letters draped across the front were printed on pages from an old book. It looked really cool, but the show was so crowded and the hallway so narrow, I don't think many people saw them. (The artwork on the back wall is not ours.)

What's New

Here are a few new books we've made. Thanks to everyone who orders from us. We are having fun coming up with new ideas!

Ann

The Big Order

In early March, we were overjoyed at getting our first sizable order—well, overjoyed and a bit scared. Amy Powers at Inspireco ordered Scrap Journals, Ephemera Photo Albums and Take Cover journals: all are one of a kind, made entirely by hand and incorporate real vintage ephemera. Needless to say, all are a bit labor intensive and, of course, we like to make each and every one as special as we can. So, now came the task of putting together such a large order and delivering it within our deadline.

Pulling together the raw materials was first, followed by mapping out everything that had to be done to complete them. It also required some outside help.





My mom graciously offered her services for the assembly work, as did Sharon’s sister-in law, Kim. That went a long way toward moving things forward. They seemed to have tons of fun and having them work with us lent a festive atmosphere to our workshop. It was like kindergarten all over again with the scissors, glue and all types of great paper. What’s not to love?






In the end, we got the order done on time, had a blast doing it and were very proud of what we made. In designing the books we kept in mind what would be appropriate for Inspireco and Amy was very happy with them. She could not have been more delightful to work with and we are thrilled to have our wares available on her wonderful website.




Ann