My Signature Collection

Signatures are so unique and personal and I always love to find my ancestors' signatures. I was renovating my house and wanted to add some family history displays to the wall above my desk. If you've seen this before, I had tweeted it a while back.

The signatures came from documents that I felt my direct ancestors personally signed, like Draft registrations, Wills and legal documents. I cropped them out then resized each signature to 3" in width. Then I lined them up in the center of a legal size document and printed on white cardstock. I had more signatures than I could use, but I had a limit.  I wanted the vertical to end up 13" to match up beside my family tree chart (and could only print on 14" cardstock anyway). Some of the signatures needed some cleaning up, like removing some background marks. My experience with Microsoft Paint was very minimal before this, but I took my time.

The frame was sold in pieces, I bought one set (2) of 13" and one set of 8". When I get tired of seeing this collection of signatures, I can replace signatures with others and have an entirely new collection to see! 

Crafty Family History

Or, "Things to do with your treasures from the old trunk in the attic".

If you keep a few Christmas cards like I do, they are great to do crafty things with.  Last fall I had an idea that wouldn't go away to do something with the signatures.  I came up with this Subway-Art-style collage of them from my cards from relatives who are no longer with us.  Just a unique way to remember them by.  Something about seeing the signatures of people I loved gives me a warm fuzzy.  These are their signatures as I knew them, not their names or "autographs".  I scanned the signatures, laid this out in Microsoft Publisher and printed it on cardstock, keeping it simple so that in the future it can be edited, adding more signatures.

Other ideas on this concept keep coming to me.  Something like this could be done with cards from a special occasion or maybe encouraging words from an extended illness or hospital stay.  Any cards where people wrote special notes you'd want to keep.  The trouble with this in the future is fewer people send cards these days. 

I like shadow boxes.  I made this one with some things found at my Grandma Bell's house, though I'm sure they weren't all hers.  The little card, with what I think is a broken hat pin through it, has written on it "Remember the 3rd of March".  You might wonder why I kept a broken hat pin, but it's the card that means something to me.  My birthday is March 3.  I was born on my Great-Grandma Sadie McGrath's birthday - three and a half years after she died.  Remember the 3rd of March.

I've also made shadow boxes with small things from my wedding and my daughter's birth. I've pinned these to my Family Heirlooms Pinterest board.  Follow me!  There are so many fantastic ideas on Pinterest for things to do with treasures you find in the old trunk in the attic!  Except for my slippers.  My Grandma Bell knitted. She used to knit me slippers that I just loved!   The last pair she made for me I put in an apothecary jar (as seen on Pinterest), but it needs something else.  Ideas are not coming easy with this one.  

When something just needs framed I manage to get it done.  I have a really cool old postcard with a calendar for 1892 on one side and a picture of a little girl lying down sleeping on the other.  I have this framed between 2 pieces of glass.  On the girl's side in the top corner it says "Hold this card to the light".  When you do, her eyes are open. They are printed on the calendar side.  Under the calendar was printed "Printer McIntosh Stationer, 135 S Twelfth.  A large line of lithographed advertising cards at prices that are right".  No idea what city that was in.

Tell me I'm not the only person who has noticed the butterfly pictures in "It's A Wonderful LIfe!".  First the two of them are hanging on the wall behind Peter Bailey at the dinner scene where he asks George to take over the Building and Loan.  Then they show up in George's house in the living room next to the fireplace.  You know those butterflies meant something to George.  Ok, I know it's just a movie and that's just something the set decorator used a couple of times, but I'm a sucker for using sentimental pieces to decorate a home. 

I LOVE ideas of ways to display family heirlooms.  Enough about mine, please share yours!