Combining my slowly unfolding A to Z challenge with my Wednesday Whimsy meme, and adding in my Victorian trade cards! I’ve got some fun ones to share this week. I actually enjoy doing laundry, even though it’s one of those never ending tasks. Somehow it doesn’t seem as pointless to me as dusting does. I even enjoyed the laundry process as a kid when I had to go hang the clothes outside to dry, using wooden clothespins. I think it’s satisfying to end up with loads of clean, fresh smelling clothes and sheets, more or less neatly folded. Although thankfully our clothespins didn’t talk to me or try to run away, as the ones on this card above are doing!

True story – my mother was right handed and she would go behind me into the linen closet and refold ALL the towels I’d just put away, because I folded them the reverse way from how she did it and she informed me it bothered her to know the towels were mixed up on the shelves, facing different directions! (I’m left handed.) She’d really be appalled by the state of folding in my current linen closet.

I think these trade cards are especially fun, from a late 1800’s brand called Soapine.  Evidently they did a whole series of clever cards where daily household objects spelled out the company name. The two I’m sharing in this post were my favorites. Soapine also had other humorous cards, like the clothespins,  and more mundane ones, without humor, that just touted the virtues of the soap itself.

I have a kind of running joke with one of my author friends, about how she always leaves the laundry until Sunday night and  then has to stay up late to get it all done – this 1880’s Queen of Laundry card below is in your honor, Jodie!