Archive for Vintage Stuff

Vintage Valentine’s Day Cards

{ January 31, 2011 @ 6:54 pm } · { Art, Paper Art, Paper Dolls, Vintage Stuff }
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Now that February is upon us (almost), I am starting to think through Valentine’s Day plans. I love holidays that involve me hanging around with my man or spending money on him. Yep. I dug out this box of Valentine cards in honor of the season. I got them a while back, but not too far back- they look like they’re a bajillion years old, but I think I picked them up at Barnes or somewhere on a clearance table. There’s glitter on them, although it doesn’t show unless you click on the image to see them enlarged.

I still don’t know who to give them to- maybe I’ll just mail them to random friends or something- they’re so lovely. Yeah, maybe that’s what I’ll do.

Two more things on the subject of vintage paper art:

I’ve been updating my blogroll and wanted to point out the addition of Marlendy. This is a blog mostly about paper dolls although some greeting cards and other such paper art gets slipped in here and there. It’s quite a treasure; she has some really cool uploads from out of print magazines.

Secondly, I found this the other day and fell in love with the artwork. Don’t think about the song or the context- just look at the pictures. Aren’t they cute?

60s Haute Couture Paper Dolls

{ July 22, 2010 @ 10:26 pm } · { Art, Clothing, Paper Art, Paper Dolls, Vintage Stuff }
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Just got these. I want every single outfit in the set, but here are a few of my favorites.

Also, I would like to mention a handy heads-up I noticed in Paste today: Prince has declared the internet “completely over.” I’m not quite sure how he figures this, but it’s good to have the warning. In this short article, he is quoted pointing out how the internet, like MTV, is simply no longer hip. There was no definition given for any of his terms here, incidentally, so I guess we’ll have to each determine for ourselves what he feels “the internet” encompasses and what exactly being “over” means to him, but I’m guessing he’s a little disheartened by his U-verse bill. That’s all I can figure… if anyone out there has a better idea, I’d be interested in hearing it.

Sophie the Giraffe

{ July 21, 2010 @ 9:40 pm } · { Giraffes, Vintage Stuff }
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I have acquired a Sophie! I’m not having a baby or anything, this is just something I’ve always wanted. First created in 1961, this Earth-friendly rubber teething toy has risen to heights of popularity that I cannot substantiate with a single statistic so you’ll have to just trust me that she’s big.

She was made by a Parisian toymaker from the natural rubber extracted from the sap of the HAVEA tree. Barnes has recently started selling them and I picked one up the other day. You can read more about her at her website here.

Here's Giuseppi hanging out with Sophie. I think he has a little celebrity crush on her.

A Few Good Don’ts

{ July 16, 2010 @ 2:41 pm } · { Books, Vintage Stuff }
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This was written by Blanche Ebbutt, and as the cover suggests, it was originally printed in 1913.

This book came from the cheap books table at Barnes and Noble. It’s exactly what it looks like, although the advice given is much better than I expected it to be. It is quite dated, but charmingly so, and without being (too) aggravating. Here are a few good ones:

  • (For him) Don’t be surprised, or annoyed, or disappointed, to find, after treating your wife for years as a feather-brain, that you have made her one, and that she fails to rise to the occasion when you need her help.
  • (For him) Don’t sulk when things go wrong. If you can’t help being vexed, say so, and get it over with.
  • (For her) Don’t give baby the same name as his father, and then have to talk of “Big John” and “Little John,” or of “Old John” and “Young John.” Call your husband always by his own name, and let your boys have names of their own, too.
  • (For her) Don’t permit yourself to forget for a single instant that nothing is more annoying to a tired man than the sight of a half-finished laundry work. The remotest hint of a “washing day” is like a red rag to a bull.
  • (For her) Don’t be a household martyr. Some wives are never happy unless they are miserable, but their husbands don’t appreciate this peculiar trait. The woeful smile is most exasperating.

Isn’t that great?

Hobbyists are so weird.

{ June 17, 2010 @ 11:23 pm } · { Books, Stuff That I Think Is Funny, Vintage Stuff }
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…and I am speaking as a hobbyist, so please don’t anyone be offended out there. These are my people, but they are definitely a buncha nuts. Collecting PEZ dispensers is not my hobby, but I do own this one here:

My mom wants me to open up the package and use it.

I’m thinking about it because my husband got this book from the library to look up certain types of PEZ dispensers today. Glancing through it, I was struck with the thought that became the title of this post.


Collectors (real ones, I’m not just talking about pack rats here) can be the craziest people. There is, amazingly enough, a relatively short and exhaustive list of genuine dispensers, authorized by the company, and some are really cool and some can be so danged ugly. The newer ones (meaning post 1985ish, IMO) are sharper, and much more plentious with multiple sets coming out annually, and seem to be themed to be less like you’re eating candy out of a cartoon character’s neck. I bet PEZ collectors are a bit irked by this. It’s not a complete collection if you don’t have them all, which means going out and investing in the entire Tinkerbell set, and knowing that next year’s popular kid movie will be likewise immortalized.

Gotta have it! Just look at all the Hello Kitty variations there are!

The book has a list of ads and packages and different periphery items a person may be interested in (like a really scary prototype of a Ronald McDonald that was slotted for happy meals but never made it), which made me wonder if there’s someone out there who has a little museum built up in their garage with a lot of shipping boxes and so on. You have to be careful which ones you get because, like any other collectible item, people have been known to counterfeit these things, but of course a real collector would be able to spot fakes.

The Paper Raincoat

{ June 14, 2010 @ 6:09 pm } · { Music, Vintage Stuff }
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This is a little duo-act called The Paper Raincoat.

My husband just found this

“Advertisement.—Persons going into other colonies may be supplied with any number of counterfeited congress notes for the price of the paper per ream. They are so neatly and exactly executed that there is no risk in getting them off, it being almost impossible to discover that they are not genuine. This has been proven by bills to a very large amount, which have already been successfully circulated. Inquire of Q. E. D., at the Coffee House, from 11:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. during the present month.”

from a 1777 newspaper archive. Interesting historical tidbit. British-controlled New York chipping away at the colonies’ solidarity through counterfeit currency. I found it both funny and cool.

Piggy Banks

{ June 13, 2010 @ 9:12 pm } · { Crafty Stuff, Vintage Stuff }
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These are some piggy banks we have.

My sister in law found this at a rummage sale (yard sale? flea market?) and gave it to us.

My mom gave us this one since I like giraffes and hubby likes pigs.

Save a penny yesterday, another save today, tomorrow save another, to keep the wolf away.

I got this on the day of my nephew's birth. I fill it with pennies to put in a bank account for him. Sometimes.

This guy has blue-green glitter shoes.

Okay, this one: someone found it by the side of the road being thrown away. It's two feet tall and is probably plotting to kill us in our sleep or something. It is the freakiest looking thing I've ever seen.

My husband likes pigs and collects them. We have quite a lot of cool pig things around the house, with these being some noteworthy pig banks. I know there are more packed in a box somewhere.

Yikes.

Getting back to my roots

{ May 31, 2010 @ 10:28 am } · { Crafty Stuff, Music, Vintage Stuff }
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Well, the family reunion is over, and we’re setting into our last day in KS before home. The theme this year has been “Exploring our Heritage,” and with that in mind, I include a few pieces of my husband’s and my heritage. The yarn ball was on display at the reunion, and the story goes that my husband’s great-grandfather was a bit of a clown. When he asked his beloved for her hand in matrimony she told him she’d only agree to it if he promised never to joke again, and sure enough, he did. I find it concurrently discomfiting and impressive that he apparently held to it… at least, that’s the story. He made these little yarn balls for the grandkids, which would have been the generation before mine, and someone insinuated that maybe tinkering with little things like this was his inner ham trying to worm its way to the surface; a little creative outlet in a strictly no-joke household. I’ve never met the guy, of course, so I can only guess at his motivations, but I thought it made a good story.

It being Monday, I wanted to post some music, and thought it would be apropos to use this clip of Andy M. Stewart, in the spirit of heritage-exploration and all. He is a true icon of my childhood, with this song being a particular favorite. My dad told us he went to see these guys when they were in the USA, and (if memory serves me) that he had gotten this record at their concert with autographs from the band and everything.

Cast Iron Coin Bank

{ May 30, 2010 @ 9:44 am } · { Travel, Vintage Stuff }
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There were several coins already in the bank- apparently it's a lot easier to get them in than out.

This is on display at the Goessel Museum. There were a couple banks like this, but this one is the best. For twenty bucks, I almost bought it, but then what would I do with it? (Of course, I would dig out my pocket change and spend hours watching the little baby chick snap back and forth.)

Trip to Kansas

{ May 29, 2010 @ 8:23 pm } · { Giraffes, Travel, Vintage Stuff }
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Giuseppi got stuffed at the German buffet. He says it was totally worth it.

We’re now visiting family and it is lovely. I’m a little worn out, but very thankful for the opportunity to meet and be with all the relatives. We spent the morning meeting cousins and listening to a presentation of family history, and then this evening we went to local restaraunt for German food, and it was quite tasty, I can tell you. Giuseppi ate way too much. I’m so mad that I left my camera at home, but my parents-in-law have graciously been letting me borrow theirs, so I got this candid of Giuseppi before he realized I was taking a picture…

We scanned a stack of pictures and visited a tiny local museum. The two shots below are a car that belonged to one of my husband’s ancestors and a plow with a motor built onto it. (There are a lot of inventors in this family.)

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