Vintage Animation: I’d Rather Be Blogging!


For your consideration, another fun little blog animation…(indulge me, okay?) I just love this one, and c’mon- who wouldn’t rather be blogging than doing housework!

I purchased a tiny 1920s/1930s antique flip book on ebay from a seller in Australia, a sort of salesman’s hand-held product demo from the Whirlwind Arcade, London.
Flipping from one side, it features a woman exhaustingly beating her rug on the line, creating dust clouds, wishing for the Whirlwind Non-Electric Suction Sweeper. Flipping the book the other direction, you find Mrs. Jones, the neighbor, vacuuming with ease with the “Cleaner Sweeper.”
By scanning each individual motion image, placing them all into Photoshop, creating an animation, exporting as a gif file, I was able to make the “I’d Rather Be Blogging” blog graphic.
To add the animation to your blog, right-click or control-click the moving image to copy the link location. Then place as a picture gadget in your blog’s sidebar by pasting the link “from the web”. It will move all on it’s own.
Animations can become quite distracting, however, so if you prefer a static image as an alternative, here you go.

Several have commented in the past asking for instructions on making an animated gif, and really, that is a bit beyond my tutorial skills, but there are many tutorials that have already been created and freely shared on the internet. I read through a few before figuring it out for myself. I recommend you begin with a simple search for instructions by clicking HERE.

UPDATE: After reading the comment by Scrap for Joy, “…By the way…I always vacuum in a dress-doesn’t everyone? LOL! ”– I suddenly remembered THIS!

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Book Cover Beauty

Thaddeus of Warsaw, by Jane Porter, 1844


I have a collection of antique books, and although some are quite wonderful and interesting in content, there are some that I admit I purchased purely on aesthetics. A few of my old books are in dire condition, but some of their covers are so beautiful that I thought that as a collection, they would make great backgrounds to share. I scanned a few of my books in their as-is condition, you may or may not want to clean them up in Photoshop. These will be wonderful for paper or digital collage, ATC backgrounds, scrapbooking, or even as background images for photographing such things as handmade jewelry or small vintage items for sale. I think I will print some out and glue them to the fronts of sketchbooks and journals. Let me know if you use any, I’d love to know what you make.

Click images to enlarge and save.

New Family Cook Book, by Juliet Cornson, 1885


Work-Days of God, by Herbert W. Morris, D.D., 1887


Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms, by Thomas E. Hill, 1901

St. Nicholas Illustrated, by Mary Mapes Dodge, 1891


The Women of the French Salons, by Amelia Gere Mason, 1891

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Free Blog Typographic Elements

It’s time for more fun blog elements! I found a whimsical, hand-hewn typeface in an old Speedball magazine circa 1940s. As it’s not a font that can be typed, so I scanned the alphabet, outlined the image and spelled out each word individually by dragging letters around in Adobe Illustrator to create some fun typographic images for your blog.If you have Photoshop, you can easily change the colors to suit your blog by going to IMAGE> ADJUSTMENTS>REPLACE COLOR. Otherwise, they’re pretty fun as basic black and white, (and I think it’s kind of obvious that’s a combo I favor.)

The following instructions are specific to Blogspot/Blogger for the Page Elements section of your blog.

For linking buttons, add the image as a PICTURE gadget then add the specific link for each.




Non-linking graphics, (just a simple floating message,) add as a PICTURE gadget with no link.

To add an email button, follow instructions HERE.

For link list headers, (a graphic to float over a list,) add the graphic as a non-linking PICTURE gadget and add another LINK LIST gadget just below with the corresponding list.

Encourage your readers to continue past the current page. Make a bottom of the page non-linking graphic to remind them to keep going by adding this as a gadget and drag it to the very bottom of your blog layout.

Want more free blog stuff and placement instructions? Click HERE and scroll through the fun.

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