Selling, Branding, Advertising

Hello, all!  In between a LOT of exciting things going on behind the scenes (watch this space on 30th June!) I found a bit more playtime with the fabulous new vintage advertising Flea Market Finds collection by Cathe Holden.  Spellbinders kindly invited me to create with some of the new ephemera, stickers, stamps and papers, and I've been having a lovely time making another batch of teabag sachets with them.

These travelling salesmen are some of the legion of men and boys who made their way around the country hawking, peddling, selling any goods, provisions, inventions and ideas they could to make a living. 

With so many of them all trying to make a buck, it all came down to how you could compete in the market - how could you convince someone to buy your product rather than someone else's?  

Patents, branding and advertising became the lifeblood of the travelling salesman, and this collection captures that feverish excitement and those endeavours so well with all the labels, stamps, seals, posters, cigarette cards and other gimmickry used to catch the eye and promote whatever was on sale.

In the recent catch-up post, you saw a number of these little series... the tiny collage space is such fun to work with.  Mind you, when my mother has mostly been drinking fennel tea, they do smell quite a lot!

I started out by gessoing the sachets and then covering them (I've always just painted them before) with some of the papers from the Neutrals Palette Sampler. 

That also got a wash of gesso to give it a more weathered look, and a little splatter of what was left on the craft mat.  

Then I got to work picking out some labels and other ephemera from the Home Arts Miscellany and Happy Thought Miscellany packs.   

I particularly love the elegant glove-shaped advertisement...

... the wonderful photo someone is carrying with them on their travels (maybe that's Pa who stayed at home on the farmstead?)...

... and the house as the logo for the manufacturer and dealer in turpentine (amongst other things).

Over on the reverse, there are some of the Etiquettes Stickers and some stamps and seals from the Circle Labels Icons Stamps.

I then realised that it was all very well having all these leaflets and logos and advertising cards... what the collages needed now was the travelling salesmen to do the hawking and promoting.

Time to get out the Paper Dolls Minis - just the right size for a tiny collage space like these teabag sachets.

It didn't take long to track down my peddlers, hawkers, hucksters and vendors, each of them ready to wear out his shoe leather in search of more customers.

Some of them are clearly right at the start of their endeavours.

Others are considerably more experienced and/or more prosperous.   (Don't judge me - I'm a little bit smitten with this guy and his smouldering gaze.  Whatever he's selling, I'm buying!)

Maybe they've even settled down with an emporium of their own now, with no need to go on the road any longer.

But the commercial travellers are as vital a part of the American story as any rancher or railway builder.  In a way, their values are the ones that have prevailed most strongly in today's society.

Certainly the advertising industry that grew out of these humble beginnings has become a huge part of the way we live now.  Buying and selling, promoting and branding, they're central to how the economy ticks over.

And these guys were there at the start of it all...  That's the journey these great little pieces of historical ephemera took me on today, anyway!  

I hope you like this little collection of teabag sachet collages.  If you click on any of the links in this post, you can take a closer look at the products I've used.  And if you make any purchases while you're there, I'll get a small commission, without you having to pay anything extra.  See, I'm at it now too!

Happy weekend all!  I'll see you on Monday for the last of my weeks in the Simon Says Stamp Designer Spotlight... watch out - it's a scary one!!

He could sell snow to an Eskimo.

Overheard in a real estate office.