Archival Greeting Cards

Did you know that I used to be an archivist at a convent archives? I loved the Sisters and my coworkers and getting to work with all the interesting records. However, a corporate archives is a lot different than a public archives like the Galt because even though corporate archives support public research in some contexts they don't have the freedom (or mandate) to do as many public programs as we do at a publicly funded institution. For example, this week we used photos from the Galt Museum & Archives to make greeting cards in our Saturday at 1 program.

We started the project by choosing some photos from our public database. You can search for photos online or you can come into the archives and talk directly to our archivist. I mostly picked photos of places that people would still recognise such as the Galt Hospital, Galt Gardens, the bridge, etc. One of our volunteers has a more creative imagination and dug up photos from the old Lethbridge Zoo, street fairs, public events and more. Our archives can provide a print or a digital file. You can also buy some pre-printed photos in our gift shop:

Our volunteer program leader, Teresa from Creative Memories, brought wonderful supplies including punches with different designs, elaborate paper cutters, fancy adhesives, stickers, and more. All of her supplies are of archival quality which means they won't deteriorate as quickly as other supplies. We use similar items - acid-free file folders and so forth - to store the original documents and photographs in the archives to make sure that they last for a really long time.

Teresa not only volunteered her time to lead the program and teach the guests interesting card making techniques, she also took the time to make some fabulous samples:

Even the insides of the cards are cool:

My personal favorite is this card because my office is where they used to do surgeries in the Galt Hospital.

We had so much fun with this program that we're going to do a similar project with holiday cards in December.