A new-to-me-mailbox card for the last day of July

 

 If you have read here much at all, you know it's no secret that I love Christmas cards featuring designs of mailboxes.  Recently I was sorting through some Christmas cards and readying to sell them in my Etsy shop, and came upon this beauty I hadn't seen before.

I've often said that I don't know why these cards speak to me as they do.   I guess the main appeal for me is of a more innocent time; that people would send gift-wrapped, string-tied parcels through the mail and they would actually arrive safely; that sprigs of holly or evergreen, snipped from the sender's yard, would be tucked in with packages, so simple, yet such beautiful enhancements.

This pretty red mailbox is mounted upon what looks like a fence post. It appears that pine and holly were planted at its base, for sprigs of both seem to be growing there.  A small wrapped gift is also at the mailbox's base.  

There's not a package or letter to be seen in this mailbox; instead it is stuffed with poinsettias and holly tied up with red ribbons.  A pair of cardinals adds yet another touch of red to this festive scene.

What a July this has been!  When I started in to post for Christmas in July 2026, I really had no idea if I would be able to post every day.  To be honest, it didn't seem likely.  But God gave me ideas and in His timing and strength I was able to post daily.  I hope this has been as enjoyable for my readers as it has been for me!

 

Today's vintage Christmas card

 

Here is one last vintage Christmas card church for the last Sunday in July.  

The red border around this scene sets it off nicely, but I think I might have used a metallic gold.  The white church with its green doors stands sturdy and tall at sunset on a winter afternoon.  In December the sun sets around 4:30 here in New England, and I love the moody winter look of this scene as it is so true to my own experience.  The church is lighted in anticipation of folks who will enter.

Already a group is singing carols around the outdoor Christmas tree.  Others are on the way in a sleigh or on foot.  I imagine that more will join them and that then all of the congregants will go in for cookies and hot cocoa -- or maybe even a potluck supper.  

I love this nostalgic image and hope that my readers will too.

Pine cone perfection

 

As I mentioned last weekend, so many themes seem to be repeated in Christmas cards and in other Christmasy items.  One of my favorite elements in Christmas items of any kind is the pine cone.  You can see them making an appearance with pink candles in the card design above.  Below are a few more from my collection.

With a tiny angel underneath

With branches, greenery and birds

I think I love pine cones so much because they represent new life.   To me they also speak of spiritual growth.

 

A Christmas card

Christmas fabric

Found in an advertisement received in the mail

Another pretty card

Another card.  What a lovely decorating idea!

A glittery 1950s parchment card

This was the outside of a photo card from the 1960s.

A scrap of wrapping paper

 So many ways to picture the humble pine cone!  Stay tuned for another really nice idea tomorrow.

This week's vintage Christmas card

 

 Here is another vintage Christmas card featuring an image of a church and village.  This is only a card front, from a very small card, but I think it is extra special.

I love the colors on this card which look as if they might be from the late 1960s or early 1970s.  The blues and greens are such interesting shades, especially the green trees in the foreground.

The village clustered around the church, nestled in the shelter of a mountain, just says "New England" to me, most likely Vermont or New Hampshire.  Tiny lighted houses in the distance remind us that some folks live way out in the country.  

People are streaming to the church, one would assume for a Christmas Eve service.  Above the mountains a brilliant star can be glimpsed, presumably the Christmas star.  

This card front with its lovely scene will be going into my box of Etsy "freebies" that I include with orders.  It will go to some discerning customer with a Christmas order!

All aboard the Christmas train!

 

 As I've worked on scanning and listing vintage Christmas cards for my Etsy shop, some themes emerge again and again.  One of them is the theme of trains, train stations, and railroads.  They come in all styles from whimsical to nostalgic to completely realistic.  I thought it would be fun to share a few of those cards and other train-themed goodies today.

 

The Santa Train!

Waving to the train while cutting the tree

A folded candy box with train theme

Love this train station.

And here is a fabric featuring Christmas trains!

 
Hope you have enjoyed this ride on the Christmas railroad.  It was a fun one for me!

Christmas in July sale at A New Hampshire Attic!

 

Yes, beginning today you can find 25% off on every Christmas listing at my Etsy shop, A New Hampshire Attic!  The sale will run through July 31.

You will find a few vintage handmades, some candy boxes, Christmas carol books, a craft booklet or two, and dozens of cards.  Over 80 listings are on sale.  Here's a peek at a few:

Unusual colors for a classic lantern design!

This bayberry sachet would have come tucked inside a coordinating Christmas card.

Decorative handmade felt mitten ornaments, circa 1980s

This tiny card is just about life size!

Pre-owned card featuring bells in a goblet

Christmas carol book, 1978

Head on over to my attic for a nice dose of vintage Christmas goodness!

Two more days for the red, white and blue sale at my Etsy shop!

 

Yes, today and tomorrow you can still find 25% off on red, white and blue listings and other American classics in my Etsy shop, A New Hampshire Attic.  Usually in July I will do a Christmas in July sale for all or part of the month.  With this year being such a big birthday for our country, I decided to do an Americana sale for the first part of July and then I will do a Christmas sale (also 25% off) for the second half of July on Christmas listings only.

Here are just a few of the 43 listings currently on sale:

 

 Go on over and browse!  I'm sure you'll enjoy perusing these fun vintage listings even if you are only "window shopping"!

This week's vintage Christmas card

 

As mentioned, on Sundays this month I plan to feature Christmas cards picturing churches.  This one includes two church steeples and some surrounding village homes.  It absolutely reminds me of some real life Vermont villages I have seen.  

And as a lifelong New Englander, I have also seen such snowstorms countless times and this scene captures it perfectly.  

The quote on the front reads 

"The gray snow-storm, held aloof
To softest outline 'round the roof".

I did a quick search to find the source of this quote.   It's a line from a poem by James Russell Lowell.  The poem is titled “A Winter-Evening Hymn to My Fire.”  

That's a beautiful title for a poem, but I read the entire thing and am definitely not a fan of it in its entirety.  The line is perfect for this painting, though.  

The message inside the card is nice, too:

"This brings a prayer at Christmas time

That God will always bless ... your home and you

And those you love ... with lasting happiness."

This lovely pre-owned vintage Christmas card will go into my Etsy shop soon. 

A vintage Christmas card to share

 

 On Sundays each week of July, I plan to post a vintage Christmas card, probably those including a church in their illustration.  For today, I've chosen this one from Famous Artists Studios.

The inside of the card informs us that the artist is Frank White.

I tried looking him up but was unsuccessful, as the Frank Whites I found were photographers and baseball players.

There is a very faint scroll like edging around the artist information as well as the message, accented with holly.  It would be very pretty if it was a little bit more distinct.  Here is the message:

It's quite faded, so the message reads:

 "Wishing you a
Blessed Christmas
and a New Year
filled with
happiness."

I loved this image, especially the sparkles and ornaments on the outdoor Christmas tree, and the lighted windows of the church.

This pretty vintage card will be going in my Etsy shop soon!

A sweet Christmas card for Rudolph Day

 

 Recently I came upon this sweet Christmas card front.  Usually with card fronts (after scanning them to use as graphics) I just add them to my stash of freebies to tuck in with Etsy orders.  I loved this one so much I decided to also blog about it -- and what better day than Rudolph Day to do so?

This is such a pretty winter country scene -- a classic red house in a snowy landscape with leafless trees, a clump of white birches, and plenty of glitter to add dimension and sparkle.  There's even a stack of firewood at the end of the house.  I would love to live in this house!

Then there's a split-rail fence and several red cardinals about.  Just a classic country scene.  The greeting reads "Christmas Greetings -- and warm wishes for your happiness always."

The back of the card front, though, carries a message that I loved and wanted to share with readers.

The text is sort of light so I'll share it here:

Meeting again at the
crossroads of the year
with memories of
happy hours gone by
and high hopes
for the year to be.

I love this thought -- meeting again at the crossroads of the year!  That may just sum up the reason why I continue to send Christmas cards -- to meet up, even if only via the mail, and check in with people with whom we share memories of happy hours gone by, people whose new years we have high hopes and prayers for.  This might be a sentiment I would add to a handmade Christmas card.  It would also be lovely as a sort of Christmas blessing to cross-stitch and display.

Anything seems possible on a Rudolph Day in March!

A sweet vintage find

 

Going through paper treasures found at the family homestead to sell in my Etsy shop, I found this striking vintage Christmas card front.  The scene is so familiar, yet so unusual.  I have never seen a church scene exactly like this one.  It's clearly evening (I believe I can glimpse the moon behind the clouds) and likely intended to depict a Christmas eve service.  Either snow or ice (or a wintry mix) has covered the ground and even the trees. I have seen trees look like that when rain or mist freezes on them quickly.  And there are so many icicles on the church.

The entire scene has a moody, cloudy vibe that I find very unusual in a Christmas card.  Yet folks are bundled up and making their way to the warmly lighted church for an evening service.  There's a parable in that!

As I looked closer at the card, thinking it was an entire card and planning to list it on Etsy, I realized that it was only a card front and that it had been repurposed as a gift tag.  Clearly, it had been taped to a tin of Bessie's Mix by my great-aunt.  The card was even still slightly curved from having been taped to a can!

Such a sweet memory.  I am so happy that I found this!

Ways to repurpose used Christmas cards and scraps of gift wrap

 

 It was recently brought to my attention that I've apparently never written a comprehensive post on this topic.  So it's time to do just that!

There are so, so many ideas out there and I have made many of them.  There may even be too many good ideas to share in one post.  We will see how I do with this one. 

Gift tags are, of course, one of the more obvious uses for your Christmas cards. And there are lots of ways to do that.  But here is a post of some of the techniques I've used: gift tags.

A very novel use of Christmas cards is to make little boxes out of them.  This post  tells just how to do that very simply.  I had tried making these boxes in the past, only to find that it was a very complicated process, involving the drawing of many lines and folding them at intersection points, etc.  This procedure is much simpler and more straightforward, and the boxes are just so cute you may find yourself addicted to making them.

Ornaments are also a great way to use Christmas cards.  This post shows how to make an ornament and also a pin!

Two Victorian style ornaments

Pin made using a Christmas tag

 The following posts have other ideas using gift wrap or Christmas cards: Juice-can lid ornaments; ornament from Mason-jar lid.

 

My granddaughter and I made Christmas card banners one year and they were so much fun to do.  I've been wanting to make some similar ones only for winter.  I could use wintry Christmas card scenes. card stock in shades of blue, navy ribbon, and use snowflake buttons in between the individual pennants.

 One of the first real craft projects I made with used Christmas cards was this one: Christmas card "kissing ball".  I made many of these for gifts over the years.  These are a bit time-consuming but I think the results are worth it.  The one I made for our home has lasted well and has taken on a real vintage look over the years.  It has had to be re-glued in places a few times, but that's a simple matter and easily taken care of.

Below, you see the "kissing ball" hanging in a doorway.

The kissing balls can also be made smaller, using, if I remember right, 1 1/2-inch circles, to produce ornaments that can be hung on the tree.  To do that, I would either simply use glitter on the edges and/or use tiny colorful beads at the intersections.  I've made these smaller ones in the past and just used glitter, but small colorful beads (in place of the mini Christmas balls used on the large ones) should look nice too.

So there you have a few ideas!  I've got more thoughts buzzing in my mind, and I know somewhere I have another couple of pictures I could use, but those will have to wait for a less busy day.

Two vintage Christmas cards with a skating theme

 

Below are two very fun vintage Christmas cards. (The one at top is newer and just for fun; this was a card sent us by our younger daughter in the very early 2000s.)

I love the little poem.

My warmest memories of winters past:
A snowman, hot chocolate, and skating fast.

At first glance, these vintage cards below appear as if they might have come out of the same box.    But that guess would be wrong, believe it or not.

 

Both are essentially the same size; I would say both are from the 1950s.  Both feature crowds of people of varying ages and abilities skating on a small pond.  

The topmost pond seems to be in the midst of a village, for there are house close by and even lamps or street lights.  There's a little fire on the shore at the pond's edge.

The pond pictured on the bottom card seems like it's more out in the country.  There are houses and even a church steeple, but they are distant.  There's a mountain in the background.

One of these cards is from the famed Brownie line, by Rust Craft.

The other has only a number and "Made in USA" on the back.

But I think the two cards are equally charming.  I have listed one in my Etsy shop and will list the other soon, probably this week.

Hope you've enjoyed seeing these sweet cards!  We're in the midst of an ice storm up here today, so one could skate pretty much anywhere.  No pond needed!  Mr. T and I have no intention of going out.