Happy New Year! Ein frohes neues Jahr! Bonne Année! Godt Nyttår! Feliz Año Nuevo! Buon Anno! Gott Nytt År! Onnellista uutta vuotta! Gelukkig nieuwjaar! καλή πρωτοχρονιά! Feliz Ano Novo!
I wish you all a happy, healthy, peaceful and fulfilling new year. Our blog world has grown a lot over the last year, it seems to me, and I'm sure we'll have more new bloggers this year. It's a bit like living in a dolls house museum and art gallery that changes daily! And where many of the artists and visitors and curators become friends, and share support and inspiration. Thank you for sharing last year, and here's to another year of great things!
My new year wishes come with a page from my Australian Nana's step-mother's 1886 scrap album. My Nana did not like her step-mother, but she had kept this album and gave it to us when we were children. We loved looking through it and making pencil rubbings of the embossed pictures - and the back and front covers:
The page I've scanned has two New Year cards by S. Hildesheimer & Co (an English greeting card company), both with very traditional European images of forget-me-nots and a passion flower.
My tiny azure flowerets
Come wishing thee good cheer,
And ask for thy remembrance,
When dawns the glad NEW YEAR.
Come wishing thee good cheer,
And ask for thy remembrance,
When dawns the glad NEW YEAR.
The New Year bring thee
Health and Happiness
Health and Happiness
There is also an Australian scene, showing The Lower Light, Sydney (from a Cave on Coast). This card was published by Gibbs, Shallard & Co (a Sydney company, and probably the first local printer of Australian Christmas & New Year cards). I'm sure I should know the name of the native plant depicted on it - but I can't remember it.
(I included an Australian card from this album in my 2009 Christmas post, too - it shows Watson's Bay & Gap, NSW with more native flowers.)
There are six cards in the album which have blank spaces within the design for writing in. I think they were probably sold for friends to exchange remembrances by. The two on this page show a school room (with a poor little dunce wearing donkey's ears!), and a clock tower. One is inscribed "When this you see, remember me, and bear it in your mind, Let the world be as it may, Think of me as you find." (And make of that what you may!) The other says more simply, "With best Love to Bella" (my Nana's step-mother's name was Isabella).
Happy New Year!
(I'm staying with my mother with dial-up internet only, so please forgive me if I'm a bit slow at leaving comments on your blog posts, or responding to yours.)
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Precious items. You are so lucky to have such antiques. Here's to another great year also. Cheers! Atleast your mom has dial-up. That's better than string and a tin can. Best to you this whole year Rebecca.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, so very interesting to contrast with blogging as a way to communicate with friends! Happy New Year, CM
ReplyDeleteHappy new year to you too!!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you Rebecca. Your blog is inspirational and extremely informative. Shall look forward to see what your blog brings forth in 2011!!! Celia
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Rebecca, I hope you're enjoying yourself with your mother!
ReplyDeleteWhat wonderful heirlooms your scrapalbums are, I especially love the one made by your grandmother.
So nice to have these pieces of family history, and it must be good for your family to know that they're in such good hands as yours.
Happy New Year Rebecca! It's great to see these scrapbooks and what a family treasure too!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lost art your family scrapbooks are...and what a joy to us that you are willing to share! Best wishes for a wonderful 2011, Rebecca!
ReplyDeleteDear Rebecca, thanks for showing some lovely treasures of your family again! I love old postcards and enjoyed to look at them!
ReplyDeleteI´m wishing you a healthy and peaceful new year, too!
Hugs, Nicola