My Love For Vintage Ephemera

I have a bit of a problem. I love to collect (and hoard) all things "paper"! I get a huge and inordinate amount of pleasure from old paper items. Give me a musty old book and I will fondle it, sniff it, well, you get the idea...I get waayy too much pleasure from anything made of paper! This all started when I began altering books as part of my art life.

I have magazines from 6 months ago, that I won't throw away, because "I haven't read them yet". The problem is, I probably won't read them, ever! It's all old news now anyway! But my "junkie" (literally) mind keeps telling me that there might be something in there that I need to read about. Besides, I just want the pictures anyway, so I just keep getting those magazines, and stacking them up.

See? I can justify this horrible, spacing sucking addiction, every time! Don't even try telling me that I won't ever, in a million years, use any of this stupid paper. "All it is doing is taking up space", you will tell me, and that will start a whole conversation of me telling you why I need to keep it. By the time I am through, you will be totally convinced I need to be locked up and observed for a few weeks, possibly given a new drug to cure this paper need. This, by the way, doesn't include my hoarding of scrapbook paper, and I don't scrapbook...I use the paper for collage, altered art and art journals.

I love the way paper looks, feels and smells, whether it is old or new, and even the way it crinkles. But the best paper is "special". The "special" paper is the paper of a Christmas card that my children got me 10 or so years ago. Or maybe it is that old postcard from the 1920's that I am still saving for the perfect art piece. It could be several pieces of paper all at once-even something as small as a postage stamp gets saved, especially if it's old.

I know it sounds pathetic, but at least I am still able top throw out most of my junk mail!

My husband has an even stranger hobby, especially considering the obsession have with paper. He collects fine point writing pens!! I guess that together, we could write a lot of books, lol!

Odd that I would marry a man who collects something that compliments my collection so well. I didn't know about his writing pen "habit' until after we were married! He even has one that lights up when you start to write with it...We both collect rocks and coins. He has a small obsession with coins, but his BIG thing is trains-he has a long standing habit of getting the Hallmark© Christmas Train Ornaments each year, and has been known to drive 100 miles to pick one up at a branch that wasn't sold out. (He called in advance and had them hold it for him-it was the last one)Yea, that's bad. But, i will go on Ebay and stare at ephemera lots on auction. Makes me feel ashamed after I do, but i do it anyway.

I used to have a bear figurine obsession, and as a result, I have literally hundreds of bear figurines. I finally was able to stop getting new ones, but have all of my collection out and on display around the top rail in my kitchen. I know-that's a lot of bears. I have every card anyone has given me for the last 10 years at least. Every invitation to my grandchildren's birthdays? Got 'em. Every photo, good and bad I have taken, or that has been given to me? got 'em. I did have a huge sheet music collection (vintage), but finally was able to part with it because of the space it took up, but I miss it every day and regret throwing it away. I can't even READ SHEET MUSIC!!! I collected it for the artwork on the front!! Oh man, I gotta get a grip on myself here or we are going to end up like the poor people on the TV show "Hoarders". If you have never seen it, these people keep everything, because they can't bear to part with it! They end up living in a tiny room, surrounded by all of their "stuff"!

I think tomorrow, I may try to throw away some of those newspapers. I am beginning to get a bit claustrophobic just thinking about living like the people on that TV show...