the paper trail of my summer vacation.
or, what to do with all those scraps of sentimental memories, postcards from afar, and our treasured ephemera.
hi! and welcome to the most recent edition of SFGirlByBay (the all-new newsletter and my blog’s brand new home) — and perhaps the very first for many of you. thank you so much for being here — your support has overwhelmed me in the best possible way! in case you're wondering, some of you may be receiving this in your inbox because you signed up for my old newsletter on mailchimp in the last few months, so welcome to my new home, i hope you’ll stay for a while. this is just the beginning. here we go —
• photo credits see collage #1 below.
perhaps you’re a bit like me, unable to toss all those holiday memories into the wastebin the minute you return home from vacation. sure, we’ve got tons of those digital images and that abundance of oversharing on Instagram, but it’s also quite nice to have a tactile remembrance of the places we’ve been, the people we’ve met, and if we’re lucky enough, a summer postcard received from a friend who of course penned, ‘i wish you were here! ‘ i’ve got a few ideas for you on creating a lasting keepsake from all those scraps of summer mementos.
artist leigh wells reminded me of this recently when she instagrammed about creating a FOMO fridge collage (just above) of those postcards she very enviably received over the summer, and it got me thinking about how much i love getting real mail like that and treasure those i do receive. i’m never quite able to get rid of the lovely sentimental thing that some kind someone took the time to write, find a stamp, maybe even licked it, and physically dropped into the mailbox to me. quite a generous use of time in these always in a hurry kinda days, and i for one, am for it.
so, in honor of real live snail mail and all the collected ephemera from our holidays away, here’s some inspiration on what you might do with it all. you might take photos of your bits and bobs and photoshop them into a collage, as i’ve played with here. or make some scrapbook art of them, or paste these precious pieces of paper into your journal along with some scribble of memory about what they mean to you. perhaps you just temporarily washi tape or magnet them to your fridge until next summer arrives with a fresh batch of vacation mementos. another idea is to collect all your ephemera and save them in unique file folders or envelopes — always nostalgic to open them up at a later date and look back fondly on a holiday. i like these retro kraft paper envelopes from zara home. glassine envelopes would be pretty, too.
i hope these simple ideas inspire you to make a lasting memory for you of what you did on your summer vacation. bon voyage, forever and ever and ever.
• photo credits see collage #2 below.
I am a weird collector of mementos, too! I used to collect matches, coasters, swizzle sticks, hotel stationary, shells etc from travels and saved them in various vessels.... Through the years I decided that saving them and not using them was dumb: however then after use they are gone. As an old gal I am going through the remaining mementos and scrap book pages, reliving the memory and saying good bye (or sending them to friends/family I shared the memory with and they can relive). Thanks for this Victoria - I feel you a kindred spirit
I'm also a memorabilia addict. The last couple of years i have been collecting those electronic hotel keys with the name of the hotels on it. I have them all in a decorative bowl on my side table and love to see them regularly and build the collection. Those old (European) hotels mostly don't have those keys, that's for that reason a bummer, but a cute business card/match box/ stationary will work in that case.