Box and Plate Made from Greeting Cards

Recently, the museum acquired typical examples of 1950s creative expression: a plate and a small box, used for storing jewelry or other delicate items. It’s unusual that they are crafted from greeting cards. Inside the box, a birthday wish is visible, while the plate features fragments of New Year’s and May 1st holiday cards. These objects reflect the aesthetics and taste of their era, illustrating the celebrated holidays. They could be classified as belonging to the naive art style.

The shapes and designs for objects made from cards were highly diverse. Mostly, these were boxes and small containers of various forms, but vases, plates, and other items were also crafted. To construct these pieces, patterns were typically prepared first, which were then used to cut out the individual components. Holes were punched along the edges of the patterns with a sewing machine, and then the separate paper parts were joined together by hand using a special stitch. A thin layer of celluloid applied to the greeting card paper made the material harder and more durable.

Crafting objects from greeting cards became a popular hobby in the 1950s. People made them both individually at home and in small cooperative workshops for broader production and trade. Such boxes were also crafted in handicraft classes in schools where Russian was the language of instruction. Special card kits, complete with pattern samples for this creative process, were available in stores, indicating a demand even then for convenient blanks for artistic expression.

Even today, this form of creative expression has not disappeared. Materials, technical execution, tastes, and traditions have evolved. Instructions for making paper boxes and other objects from greeting cards by sewing them are available online, but glue has become a more convenient technique than sewing. Furthermore, cardboard is now more frequently used instead of greeting cards, which can then be covered or painted.