When I was walking up and down the aisles at CHA last month, something non-scrapbooking/paper/ribbon/embellishment-related caught my eye…a beautiful, large wooden spool…with drawers!

What a wonderful piece!  I know, it looks precariously perched towards the back of the table.  The nice people in the booth were kind enough to move all their post-it notepads from the opened drawers so that I could see what it looked like closed…and then opened again! 

Then they proceeded to point out their cool display of memorabilia.   I love old “things”.  Wandering down memory lane and one of those collectibles (that I can afford) are spools of thread.

Isn’t the top one cute?  Just looking at the “anklet shades” of darning and mending thread makes me smile to imagine those colors of socks on little feet…I guess they could be big feet, too!

I have glass jars full of all sorts of different colors and types of threads, most of them purchased at thrift stores or estate sales.  They are really fun!  But back to the trade show and a few of their gems.

I love the color card binder.  It’s fun to think that salesmen had all that those sorts of sample cards so many years ago!  It would be a fun addition to a scrapbook page or an album, but sad to take a page out of the book, for sure.  (I have been known to take books apart!)

This is a fabulous calendar, don’t you think?

I wouldn’t mind one of these to store spools of thread in…

I would love to find something like this!

How’s this for zippers?

I already have a lot of these colors, on really old wooden spools…am I lucky woman or what?  

In commemoration of their 200th year, Coats and Clark re-printed some of their trade cards with a calendar on the back.  The Coats and Clark people very kindly gave me an extra set of these cards and I would like to share with you…it’s just a little giveaway, but if anyone out there is interested, please leave me a comment.  I will randomly draw a name (out of the hat) Saturday, February 24, 2012, in the morning.  I think these would be great with vintage photos or as part of one of those cute little albums.  I am anxious to use mine!

If you are interested in more of the Coats and Clark history, please visit the Coats and Clark website here. It’s all very interesting!  Happy crafting!