Scrapbooks 2

Another half a dozen vintage Scrap Book cover designs, dating from the 1930s to the 1960s. The first page of these Scrap Book covers (which I am currently over-obsessed with!) is on the site. There is also a third page.

My Treasured Recollections was put together by M.S.Sewell, who started collecting film star cuttings in March 1949.  The cover looks like ti was probably first printed after the War, with the ubiquitous pair of scissors and pot of glue. Our scrapper has been very meticulous assembling the cuttings over 64 pages.

The Silvine Scrap Book was a very popular product in the Sixties, and the small cover illustrations all feature images from the decade – British made fighter jets and formula 1 racing cars!  Silvine as a brand is still on the high street and scrapbooks by them can be found in post-offices and stationers.  This one is quite a large size compared to older examples, and the loose lower-case type is typical of the period.

My Garden Scrap Book was made at Newton Mill in England. The illustration is very much 1950s, even if the artwork and particularly the lettering suggest an artist trained a decade earlier.  This Scrap Book contains fashion reference illustrations cut from vintage magazines, and was actually put together by my Aunt in the 1960s. Acting was a hobby and passion, and she was involved in production duties as well, so the illustrations were her aide for costume work.

The older, bold looking Scrap Book has a nice illustration of a seaside pier on the front, with dramatic clouds building over the cliff  (and an emphatic panel saying simply “The End” on the back!). It has been filled in, ‘started in Feb 1949’ according to a note inside, and is of sporting cuttings, mostly football.

My Rainbow Scrapbook would seem to have been put together by the same person in the late Forties, but must have been printed back in the early Thirties, judging from the Art Deco look of the cover and small illustrations inside.  If you were short of inspiration, the makers have drawn up a long list of scrap book topics on the inside back cover, which range from Domestic Animals to Artists and Their Paintings. “Black Sambo’s Scrap Book” is one of the more esoteric suggestions…

Lastly, the Scrap Album, made by a long established stationary firm, John Dickinson.  This very simple cover has a sort of passport cover design, and once again those scissors.  The pattern is simply a photograph of some woven fabric across the front and back.  I think it dates from the Sixties but was still in print a decade later.

After I had photographed it, I was very taken by the stark image against the rough texture of the board I use as my stand, and went away to work with this as the basis for a print, and try to capture something of the functional nature of the product ….