Our First Christmas Card Collection

We are very proud to introduce our first-ever Christmas card collection. Christmas has always been our favorite time of the year (we love it so much that our wedding date was December 15, 2007), and when I first started dreaming of Gerald and Joan, I knew Christmas would be an integral part of our business.

Fast forward several months, and our family slides came into my possession. As soon as I saw these images, I knew they were supposed to be our 2013 Christmas card collection. Our mission statement -- preserving history through design -- comes alive through this collection. These images and the cards themselves are completely timeless, yet nostalgic, and they effortlessly blend the past with the present and future.

Here's a little bit more about the collection from our look book:

The first Christmas collection from Gerald and Joan features five Kodachrome photographs from our personal archives. The images were taken at Joan's family home of Gates Mills, Ohio in the 1940s. Scanned from slides discovered after decades in storage, these vintage images transport us back to a simpler time when a white Christmas felt truly magical. To ensure each photograph shines, they are printed on heavy bright white cover stock. Inside each folded card the cover image is repeated and joined by a whimsical holiday greeting. The Christmas magic is then brought to life with a light dusting of crystal glitter and snow and embossed snowflakes dancing across each envelope flap.*

The collection features two options, plus our "little extras" -

5 x 7 Folded Card Set: A basic package of 10 cards includes two copies of our five classic designs. The cards are two-sided, and they are accompanied by 10 high quality A7 metallic silver envelopes.

4.5 x 6.25 Postcard Set: A basic package of 10 cards includes two copies of our five classic designs.

Little Extras* Three Snowflakes Embossed on Envelopes Dusting of crystal glitter and snow on cards Handwritten signatures printed inside each card (you send us your signatures and we digitize and add them to the cards)

The basic packages of 10 cards are now available in our Etsy shop. If you would like to purchase a larger quantity or a custom order with any or all of our little extras, contact us below:

[contact-form subject='[Gerald %26amp; Joan'][contact-field label='Name' type='name' required='1'/][contact-field label='Email' type='email' required='1'/][contact-field label='Website' type='url'/][contact-field label='Comment' type='textarea' required='1'/][/contact-form]

View the entire Gerald and Joan Christmas Look Book here or click on the image below.

We are so proud to be able to share this collection with you today! Ironically, November 15 happens to be our day to decorate our house for Christmas (a tradition we started in 2006), and it also marks the tenth anniversary of our first real date. :)

Christmas Collection Sneak Peek

Gerald and Joan is excited to announce that our first collection of Christmas cards and postcards will debut later this week! While some of us are nostalgic all year long, most of us feel nostalgic at Christmastime. Whether we're baking cookie recipes that have been in our families for generations, singing carols and hymns that have been enjoyed for centuries or trimming our trees with ornaments that belonged to our parents and grandparents, Christmas is a time for treasuring memories, carrying on traditions and enjoying every moment of the season surrounded by our family and friends.

As nostalgia, tradition and heritage are all integral to our design process, it probably doesn't come as a surprise that our Christmas collection evokes those feelings. The collection features five snowy images from Gerald and Joan's personal archives. They are 1940s slides of Joan's childhood home in Gates Mills, Ohio, that I scanned and edited myself. The cards are printed on 110# bright white cover stock to highlight the breathtaking scenes, and they are accented with a dusting of extra fine white glitter and crystal "snow." To continue the sparkling theme, they are accompanied by metallic silver envelopes.

Like Gerald and Joan itself, this collection was a labor of love for us. It takes a little bit of our history and shares it with the world. Though simple, it accomplishes the founding principle of Gerald and Joan -- it preserves a little piece of history through our design work. It also makes us very proud.

Family and friends, look for your very own card from the collection in the mail this holiday season, as we plan to send out a Santa-sized sack of them! If you would like to support our work and send some of your very own, both the cards and postcards will be available for purchase through the blog on Friday. While we're partial for handwritten Christmas messages, they can also be personalized for easy mailing. :)

We would love to help you send out some vintage-inspired Christmas cheer this December!

[gallery type="rectangular" ids="2380,2379,2376,2375,2378,2373,2377,2374,2372"]

On the Road: Ohio in the Fall

Confession: I have never seen Ohio in the fall. My mother's family were Ohioans for many generations, but after my great-grandfather's death, my great-grandmother moved with her second husband to California. Two of her three children and their families followed, and in time, the connections to Ohio became faded memories.

After sorting and scanning my family's Kodak slides, I realized just how lovely Ohio is in the fall....

Isn't it just magical? It looks exactly the way fall is supposed to look! I love the shots of the water, and those yellow leaves and the white cottage in the last photo are dreamy. Apparently that was my family's home in Ohio...the original white house!

All of the photos shown above are my family's personal photographs taken in the Euclid, Ohio area between the 1940s and 1960s. I scanned each Kodak Kodachrome slide and then edited them to share here. If you are interested in hiring Gerald & Joan to preserve your family's photographic memories in a similar manner, please click here to contact us. We would be happy to help keep your family's heritage alive for future generations.

Discovering the Family Stories

Recently, I inherited boxes and boxes of Kodak slides from the 1940s through the 1970s. Many of them haven't been viewed in my lifetime, and as I've previously mentioned, I'm approaching the 30-year mark this Sunday. Basically, they've been in storage for a long time. Along with the slides, I have a vintage light box and other various viewers. My mother also has two projectors and a screen from the same era. In the few weeks that the slides have been in my possession, I have learned so much about my family. There are so many photos and memories that had been forgotten. Seeing them again is like getting to see our loved ones again. It is a wonderful feeling.

As if by fate, I purchased a new printer and scanner around the time the slides came home from storage with me, and the scanner has a mechanism that allows for film and slide scanning. I have begun scanning hundreds of our family's slides, and have been thrilled with the results. As the mission of our business is to preserve history through design, the irony of the slides and scanner entering my life at the same time was not lost on me. It fits what we set out to accomplish with this business perfectly.

In the coming days, we'll share these new Gerald & Joan offerings, including slide scanning and preservation. If you have memories in dusty Kodak boxes, we hope you'll consider hiring us to convert your slides to DVDs or even take the process a step further and preserve them in albums or photo books. We have personally found so much happiness from our own family memories, and we would love to preserve other people's family treasures the exact same way.

Here are a few of our family memories that we've rediscovered recently.

This is Joan on Easter Sunday by the coy pond in her landlord's backyard in Gardena.  She is wearing a suit that her mother bought her at Silverwoods in Del Amo (see a 1965 ad from the store here. Her pin and the pearl earrings were also gifts from Elsie that she brought back from a trip to the Orient. (My mother helped with the details here).

My mother at home in California. She is sitting in front of the picture that now hangs in our living room. Here is that same picture in our old house. You can see barely see the Christmas tree in this shot.

Here she is again with one of the lamps that is in our living room today. Check out the TV and the little Christmas elf that is hanging from the lamp.

My great-grandmother's sister Myrtle Robb, who was known as Mickey, and her mother, my great-great-grandmother and namesake, Laura Dumm, who was known as Grandy, at home in Ohio in the mid 1960s.

Kent W. Benham, who was known as Mr. B, in Ohio, before most of our family relocated to California.

My great-grandmother, Elsie, and Mr. B on their wedding day.

Another shot of the couple on their wedding day.

Oscar Tener, Grandy's neighbor and lifelong friend. Here he is working in his garden. He was also an avid clock master.

Aunt Mickey (left) and my great-great-grandmother, Grandy, (center) with Joan's brother's wife and her parents in Ohio in the mid '60s.