The Paper Girl

Antique & Vintage Ephemera Since 2019

5 Vintage Wedding Bell Images

I know a while back I mentioned that I have a lot of mid-century greeting cards (of which only a handful are really usable, alas), and I also know that I may have mentioned that there was a lot of bridal shower-related content in that batch.

With bridal showers comes weddings and wedding bells, and I figured you’d appreciate some wedding bell content, for some reason. On with the show!

I like the simple colour scheme in this card, though I didn’t appreciate the texture when I was cleaning it up. Huff, pout, etc. The little bit of colour could be knocked out and replaced if that was your thing, though. I’m reminded of newspaper wedding announcements, with their simple monochrome drawings, even if this is a gift card. The bells would be fun on their own without any of the flowers or lace.

These bells are silver foil on a pretty pink background, paired with greenery and ribbons and roses. This graphic is so lovely and doesn’t go overboard on detail, which is nice, and especially appropriate for an image that isn’t part of the main body of the card.

“For Your Wedding” makes use of plenty of delicate blossoms and lots of pale pink. The faint pattern on the bells is a nice touch and not too overpowering—it helps draw everything together, even though I likely would not have used it. Some of the petals look like hearts!

I often find foil and metallic elements on mid-century cards, which is a nice way to help the design stand out in minimal-colour designs like this one. Look, I’m drawn to anything that’s shiny, I can’t help myself, it’s just who I am. Blue and gray is a very interesting choice.

Get it? “May Your Marriage Be The Doorway to Future Happiness”? And it’s on a door? Ha, ha, ha, funny. I do like that the colour scheme is mostly pink and green, there’s something fresh and spring-like about that combination. It’s lovely. The little touches of gold are nice, too.

Do you notice any patterns here? I do! Wedding-related cards use bells a lot, and although the most common flowers that get used happen to be roses, there’s often a bit of variety. This batch had roses and cherry blossoms and… mystery flowers. Some of the plants in the top image remind me of poinsettias, which are kind of unusual for wedding flowers.

I think more vintage wedding cards should have alligators, but that’s just me. Nobody said I had great taste.

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to my mailing list! If you do so through this link, you will get a code for 15% off in my shop and a weekly post digest. Why weekly? I really hate spamming, and some weeks are busier than others. This way, everything gets sent to you in an easy-to-handle package. What’s not to love?

Anyway, I will see you all soon with another selection of vintage images for you to use!

Forget-Me-Not With These 4 Postcards

Forget-me-not flowers are pretty little plants that you’ll find growing in spring and summer. They are hardy little devils whose clusters of blue blooms have been symbols of devotion for a long time. You may even see it used in funerary art to remember deceased loved ones—and in the cases of postcards like these, to remind the receiver not to forget them.

The forget-me-not comes in pink and white varieties, too, and is considered an invasive species in some American states. Yeah. They are a self-seeding plant that is so good at spreading itself that they’ll just do whatever the hell they want if left to their own devices. Since they love wet soil, they’ll just kind of meander down into wetlands because sweet, sweet water.

Deadhead generously.

When we look at the meaning behind forget-me-nots in the Victorian era, we find that they—along with a lot of flower language—are associated with love. The memory of true love, devotion, a request to not forget the person sending the message. Adding more flowers creates more complicated messaging, or just adds to what’s been said.

Violets, as in the first postcard, are symbolic of watchfulness, modesty, and faithfulness. Perhaps this card was asking the recipient not to forget the sender and to remain faithful to them! There’s also some lesbian symbolism with violets and violas, with these flowers representing women in same-sex relationships as early as Sappho’s time. A flight of fancy? Maybe, if one forgets that same-sex relationships have been a thing for millennia.

Daisies are a message of innocence or loyal love. They also can mean “I’ll never tell”, something that aspiring authors may want to tuck away in their cap for later use.

Do my eyes deceive me? Am I seeing geraniums in a couple of these? If I am, they have an interesting meaning, too! Geraniums stand for folly and stupidity. Is it a folly to remember someone? Am I reading too much into these gorgeous vintage postcards?

Oh, probably, but it’s still fun to try figuring them out.

I hope you enjoyed these old postcards. Did you use them to make something? Share the links to your creations in the comments below!

What Happened to Beaucraft Greeting Cards, Ltd.?

Once upon a time, Toronto was home to Beaucraft Greeting Cards, Ltd., which produced a wide range of greetings and gift supplies. Their Beaucraft Expressions line was manufactured in Canada.

And did you know that this company was connected to the McMichael Art Gallery?

Don McMichael, Beaucraft’s founder and mastermind, was the brother of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. He served Canada as a member of the RCAF during WWII, and upon returning home Don did what many former soldiers did and entered into business for himself and his family: he started making greeting cards.

Back then, door-to-door sales were common and even expected. People could show up and try to sell you just about anything—from vacuums to cookies and more! Now, notsomuch. We’re warned not to open our doors to salespeople because, most of the time, it’s a scam. Or it’s Rogers and Bell trying to sell you internet you can’t get. Same thing.

Mr. McMichael’s business bloomed. As Beaucraft grew, it went from the back of a wagon to serving Toronto direct retail locations, then expanded far beyond that. By the time the company acquired “Kards by Kay” in 1984, they had spread through the Golden Horseshoe and across Canada.

And then, suddenly, they disappeared.

Donald Norman McMichael passed away on January 13, 2009. References to Beaucraft as an employer on LinkedIn have positions ending in 2011 and 2012, and the last successful snapshot of beaucraft.com on the Wayback Machine is from February 2011. After that, nothing, except for a note that the website was for sale for a while.

Did somebody buy them out? I thought that perhaps Carleton Cards had, but wasn’t able to find any data to support that guess.

On the old Beaucraft website, it states that the company manufactured and distributed cards under license with some of the biggest names in the industry. They were building their own worldwide network of freelancers and creatives to better position themselves in their industry, and made claims of being “on the cutting edge of market trends.”

But, like many of Toronto’s manufacturers, Beaucraft vanished into the mists of time.

If you have further information on the fate of Beaucraft Greeting Cards, Ltd., comment below or send me a message. I’ll update this post when I learn more. In the meantime, please enjoy the two label graphics from one of Beaucraft’s cards. Just click on each one to open the file at full size.

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