I encountered a term today: Paper Treasures.
It's often used by people who do book arts--journals, collages, mixed media, etc. Since the movement to digital everything, old papers are inherently intriguing. Working with papers is nostalgic and full of memories.
I love real books, never made the switch to digital reading. I love the texture and smell of paper, underlining passages I like, turning down corners. Holding an unread book is like holding a gift. In book arts, the act of making individual books is a beautiful art form in itself, often incorporating pages from old vintage books as well as painted images and shapes and collaged bits of paper ephemera.
Tickets, bingo cards, postage stamps, maps on paper, handwritten letters, autograph books, Valentine cards, wedding and family pictures of the early 20th century, library cards, handwritten recipes--these tell the stories of our history.
When I go to a thrift shop or antique shop, the paper section is where I land. An old Blue Horse label reminds me of elementary school and I can literally smell the pages and the ink from cartridge pens that traveled across their light blue lines.
When I first started teaching high school, 1970, I found it amusing when students would call out, "Miss, I don't have any pages!" (blank sheets of paper.)
Today's students have way fewer pages than we used to--as most of their writing is done on their iPad and sent to the teacher's iPad to grade and return, tablet to tablet, no horses.
If a fire or a flood were threatening to destroy all our worldly possessions, most of us would use what time we could to rescue our paper treasures. the irreplaceable letters and photographs we can hold in our hands, evocative of our favorite stories.
I'd rescue this little box. In it, there's a stack of papers, and here's what Day wrote on the top piece in the stack:
Mommy, I L❤️VE YOU! (If you find this hug me!)
In October, Elena found the box and added a page of her own:
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