About Us
Maybe your family, like ours, entertained each other on long trips in the car by playing games. One of the games our family played the most was the alphabet game where the person who spotted all the letters of the alphabet first won. My daughters suspect this game was a way for their father and me to reinforce the letters of the alphabet. This is partly true. But perhaps it’s also true that I just love letters and the sounds they make together.
A few years ago, while on a family trip, I got the idea to find the letters of the alphabet by carefully looking around me. I looked everywhere – in nature, in other cultures, in the country, in city life, in food, in architecture – just everywhere. It was, and is, the ultimate alphabet challenge.
The object is to find all the letters of the alphabet in one setting; that is, one city, state or country, depending on the length of the trip and the extent of the travel. The letter must occur naturally; that is, it cannot be a set-up. And, it should not be an actual letter (but sometimes they are!).
The best is to find a letter in an object that starts with that letter. For example, in the China alphabet pictures, the “O” picture is of a circular door that can be called an “opening.” The very best is to find the letters in places that are representative of, or unique to the area, so that you feel like you get to know a place by seeing the photos. For instance, the “A” in the China alphabet pictures is in on a barge floating past the landmark tower on the Huangpu River in Shanghai.
After I had collected alphabet pictures on 3 or 4 trips, my daughter, Becca, had the idea to make names out of the letters and give them as gifts to her friends. This idea has blossomed into “good as YOUR word” frames.
We have several sets of photo alphabets that illustrate the 26 letters of the English alphabet. The collections reflect the places we have traveled including:
| SPAIN – mostly Barcelona MEXICO – mostly Cuernavaca and Xochicalco FRANCE – mostly Bordeaux CHINA – Beijing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Dali, Xian, and Lijiang ITALY – mostly Venice USA – Maine and Austin, Texas (so far) |
We have set up the website so that you can spell words or names with letters from around the world. Your “good as YOUR word” frame will include a description of the locations where the letters for YOUR WORDs were found.
My family and I are happy to share these photo alphabets with you. Others will be coming soon!
We hope that you enjoy this as much as we do.
Mary M. North
P.S. – If you have any questions, you can reach us at any time at info@goodasyourwordframes.com.
