Did you acquire some gift tins–maybe full of cookies, or cocoa mix, or candy–at the holidays? Now’s the time to turn them into way cooler Flickr Commons gift tins, that you can give for Valentine’s Day, or any other occasion.

I like to do a bunch of tins at once, because it’s more efficient. Start by taping the tins shut, so that you don’t muck up the closure–you want the tins to be useable after you’ve painted/collaged/doodled on them:

Put them in a cardboard box together, if you are planning to spray paint them all the same color–it’s neater and you don’t waste as much spraypaint.

Now, spray paint as you like. Some spray paints will give you better coverage than others, but then you may like the effect of some transparency. I tend to like a variety of effects, so I used a matte white, a matte black, and a shiny (more translucent) red.

Next, print some of your favorite pictures from Flickr Commons. I like historical images of women, but you can use anything that suits your gifting needs: baseball players, for example, would be another good choice. Play with your printer settings if you want more sepia tones, or if you like higher contrast. Remember you don’t have to print onto white paper–colorful papers can give nice effects too. Cut out your images, mindful of the size of your tin’s sides.

Now the fun part: collage the cutout images onto the tin with Mod Podge or a similar product. After that’s completely dry, remove the tape, and add doodles with permanent markers. Your doodles don’t have to be elaborate! Try Xs, Os, radiating squiggles, stars…

Finally, fill your tin. If your tin is just the right size, it will hold an impressive number of sharpies, for example, which is better than candy for some craft cabin denizens. Ahem.

Flickr Commons mages used on this tin and visible in this how-to include Bertha Wegmann from the Royal Library of Denmark, a woman and baby from the George Eastman House, and Miss Dee from the National Library of Ireland.

Seventy-five years ago today, over 200 men started marching to London from the town of Jarrow, about 300 miles away, along with their MP, Ellen “Red Ellen” Wilkinson. They marched for 22 days, often in rain and wind, protesting the economic devastation caused to the North East of England by the closing of shipbuilding and related industries during the 1930s. They carried a petition with thousands of signatures in an oak box; along the way, sympathetic local organizations and town councils fed and housed the men. (There was also a group of blind men marching with the Jarrow marchers, with similar economic concerns; the event is sometimes called the “Jarrow and Blind Marches” for this reason.)

Their protest was not immediately successful; they turned in the petition to the House of Commons, but the Prime Minister refused to meet with the men, and no provisions were made for relief in the North East. Each man was given a pound for train fare home.

Here are some of the Jarrow marchers, in the Commons, thanks to the National Media Museum:

The last of the original Jarrow marchers died in 2003; this month, to mark the 75th anniversary of the event, a group called Youth Fight for Jobs is planning to recreate the march, bringing attention to unemployment during another economic crisis. Today there is a pub named for the marchers in Jarrow, and a several monuments to their efforts.

The Museum of Photographic Arts has just joined Flickr Commons, and (as their name might suggest) their photos are already a treat. They’ve got something for everyone: Like famous photographers? They have Fox Talbot and Gertrude Kasebier, Lewis Hine and Julia Cameron, Dorothea Lange and Eadweard Muybridge, for starters. Into photographic and printing processes? They’ve got cyanotypes, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes, some salt prints, lots of albumen and gelatin silver prints. Are the subjects more of interest? The first 500+ uploads include portraits, landscapes, cityscapes, architectural images, and photojournalism, from Hindu temples to European cathedrals to the London streets to the American West. The Museum of Photographic Arts is based in San Diego, California, so there’s also a nice set of images from the Panama-California Exposition there, in 1915.

Welcome, MoPA!

New to the Commons today is the Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums.

Tyne and Wear is a county in Northeast England, where the rivers Tyne and Wear meet the North Sea. You may not have heard of “Tyne and Wear,” but you have probably heard of its constituent boroughs: South Tyneside, North Tyneside, the City of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, and the City of Sunderland. Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums joins with over 200 photographs of local history and place, from fish and ships to criminals and biscuit-makers. Please join us is welcoming them to the Commons!

Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Archives yesterday joined the Commons group of museums, archives, and libraries on Flickr.

The Woodrow Wilson Library brings to its Commons inauguration over 600 photographs covering Wilson’s academic and political careers and his family life. History students might head first to the World War I collection, which includes sets of photographs from the Treaty of Versailles and League of Nations negotiations. More interested in the people surrounding and supporting the presidency? You might start with the Wilson family, or with Wilson’s Cabinet. Either way, join us in welcoming the Woodrow Wilson Library Archives to the Commons!

In memory the late Elizabeth Taylor, SMU (Southern Methodist University) Central University Libraries has uploaded a set of photographs of a visit she made to Dallas, Texas, in 1987:

More Women’s History Month content from Flickr Commons — this time, a diverse collection from the Center for Jewish History NYC: Meet baseball players and judges, actresses. and “the Angel of Ellis Island”:

For your viewing pleasure, we bring you Anna’s video Awesome Moustaches of the Commons. (Want to know what the accompanying music is? Find out here!)

Dame Clara Butt (1872-1936) was an English contralto with a successful recital career on both sides of the Atlantic. Her physique (she was 6 feet 2 inches tall) and her technique gave her a booming voice that could be mistaken for a man’s in some recordings. She married a baritone, Kennerly Rumford, in 1900. The couple performed together in concerts. They also had three children, Joy, Roy, and Victor.

Dame Clara arrived in New York City with her children in the 1910s and was greeted by news cameras (as were many famous arrivals at the port). Here’s the Bain News Service photograph of the occasion:

Okay, family photo, not great art; one of the kids is grimacing, as kids will do. But here’s the cool part: British Pathé film cameras were also present at the occasion. Here’s video of the newsreel they made, showing nearly the same moment. If you ever wished you could see some of the Flickr Commons historical images “in action,” this is a case where you can.

And as long as you’re looking at and watching Dame Clara Butt, here’s audio, in case you want to hear her, too.

Florida State University Students Enjoying a Day of Snow: Tallahassee, Florida
February 13, 1958
State Library and Archives of Florida: Rc06637