Mitzi's Miscellany

I'm Going to Have a Very Vintage Summer

What are your summer plans?  I'm spending time with family, first by traveling to Florida to visit my parents, then hosting my in-laws at our house.  As I was pondering how to construct this post, I decided to weave in some cool graphics as I write about my plans to live a very vintage summer.  You can use the graphics in your own art by clicking on the images and printing them out.

While I'm in Florida, I'll be sure to send the folks back home some postcards:

It's possible we might drive to Chicago, and instead of using my husband's GPS system, I'm going to insist that we use only vintage maps, like this Sinclair Gasoline map:

 If we need to contact someone, I'm going to send a Postal Telegraph instead of using my cell phone!

 When relatives gather, we might have a good time playing a card game.  I'm not sure if I have a complete deck of these animal cards, but maybe we can make something up:

 

Between visits with family, we have a list of home improvement projects to tackle.  I need to find a new floor covering for our living room......maybe this rug will fit the bill.  I really like the price!

Our kitchen needs a new look too.  I'd love to try a vintage linoleum in a fancy design.  If I could only choose from these beautiful patterns:

My husband does the lawn mowing, and for good reason.  I'm going to insist that he use a vintage lawn mower this summer, like the one pictured below:

I might need to consult the experts before I consider freezing food, so this booklet will come in handy.  And when I do housework, I'll be sure to wear a tight fitting dress, a ruffly apron, and high heels:

I've always wanted to make my own ice cream, the perfect summer treat.  Perhaps one trick to making great frozen treats is Jell-O Ice Cream Powder: 

My Jell-O recipe book was written in 1920.  I love the cover illustration:

Yes, Jell-O made something called "Ice Cream Powder" that you added to cream.  It's going to be hard to find, but I know there's some out there.  I'll need to have enough frozen treats on hand to serve to my girlfriends, who might like to have a refreshing cold treat after swimming and sunbathing:

I hope you can have a Very Vintage Summer too!

Mitzi 

Cheerful Springtime Blog Post

Here in Michigan, it has been dreary, gray, and the rain has really been pouring down intermittently today.  The weather, coupled with my last blog post about the untimely death of a beautiful young woman, has gotten me in a bit of a funk that I want to snap out of before the weekend!  I though I'd throw together a post with some cheerful images of things I love.

What's cuter than Shirley Temple?  I can't think of anything!  I purchased some Shirley paper dolls which you might be able to print out and use in your art somehow, or just enjoy her adorable little face!

An uplifting activity for a rainy day would be to go to the Sun Theatre to see Bye Bye Birdie or the Flower Drum Song.  I love old musicals!  These colorful theater posters I picked up at an antique store are really fun.  They show how frequently a small town, single-screen theater changed movies back in the day (1961, to be exact).  They also note "in color" after many of the titles.  Color was a big deal back then!
 

One reason I like these posters so much is they remind me of my days in "show business", when I was a teenager.  I worked at two old-time downtown movie theaters all through high school and college.  I loved working at the theater!   Most of the time I was the popcorn lady, but I also worked the little ticket booth occasionally. 

How about some hot popcorn, Twizzlers, and "Flower Drum Song"?

Did you notice the blue and white letter "N" behind my posters?  These old letters came from a Detroit theater marquee.  I had about 12 of them and have sold all but one on Etsy.  They are so cool!  Can you imagine what one would look like with a light behind it?  The white insert was actually glass, although some had been replaced with Plexiglass. 

Acquiring a new yoyo quilt is a sure-fire mood elevator.  The one pictured below I purchased on eBay, and required quite a bit of hand sewing by me to secure some loose yoyos.  I have to give credit to the maker of this colorful piece for selecting great fabric and making a nice design, but she was a little lax in her sewing skills!

All of my goods get inspected by one of my crew, who have been trained not to step on things as you can see below:

Maybe a springtime "chapeau" would lift my spirits.  The little whimsical hat below is actually called a "fascinator".  Suddenly, fascinators seem to be very popular, both vintage and new versions people are creating.  I don't know how you could wear this around town without smiling!  There's kind of a woodland pixie kind of thing going on with this example:

 

Nothing lifts my mood better than a big, messy craft project.  I've got several in the works right now that I will be posting about this month.  While I'm away from my craft room, I have this charming pair of teddies watch over my stuff.  Old teddy bears are so lovable:

Back in March, I posted about my fabric flower brooches that were so enjoyable to make.  This month, I got out my stash of felt and tried my hand at Betz White's directions for making felt flower brooches.  I put my own twist on her version by using some vintage earrings and buttons as centers for some of them:

 

So, this post has turned into kind of a "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens" composition, and just like in The Sound of Music, I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel so bad.  And what do you know, the sky is beginning to lighten up around here......

 
 

Up-Cycle Bottles and Jars with Decoupage

If you are a "thrifter", garage-sale frequenter, or flea-market fiend, one of the most common items you'll come across are glass bottles and jars, both vintage and newer.  You can rescue a group of these beauties from the recycling process or, heaven forbid, from the trash, by "up-cycling" them using decoupage and simple embellishments.

The group of vintage bottles below came from an antique mall, and were all priced at $1.00 to $3.00 each:

With just basic decoupage technique, colored water, and ribbon, I was able to transform my antique-mall bottles into these colorful examples:

I recently wrote a guest blogger post for Mod Podge Rocks, where I showed readers "How to Rock Some Bottles and Jars with Mod Podge".   For the Mod Podge project, I used the bottles and jars below:

Here are a few of the completed bottles:

 

I selected all three of the labels above from The Graphics Fairy, a fabulous resource for graphic images.  If you click on "Advertising" and "Labels" on the sidebar, you'll have lots of great vintage designs just a click away.  Print them out, resize them if needed, and age them around the edges with some ink such as Tim Hotz Distress Ink.  That way, the white edges won't distract from the label once on the bottle.

The largest bottle was a perfect holder for a gathering of peacock feathers, which pick up the green color scheme I have going on.  A little ribbon and some millinery blossoms look at home in my Sigault bottle, and my vintage apothecary jar looks interesting with a collection of green thread spools:

 
Everything I needed for the project is pictured below, except for the embellishments such as ribbons and millinery flowers.  Here we have a brayer; Mod Podge; Distress Ink for making your labels look authentically stained and old; a foam brush, and of course the labels:

Another grouping of finished bottles:

The advertising I selected to serve as "labels" for these amber bottles makes a bit of an optical illusion, but I thought they were interesting nonetheless. 

An lastly, I used a copy of an old coffee bag, trimmed it down, and used it for this large glass canister that I filled with......coffee beans!

Here are a few suggested variations on this project:

Create your own labels using pictures of your family or even pets, combined with some interesting graphics, and use them on empty wine bottles.

There are many great images you can copy from vintage postcards.

Look though an old magazine from the 1950's for some cool mid-century ads that could be scanned into your computer, modified, then printed out for bottle labels.

One more tip:  If you want to fill your bottles with colored water, use food coloring and corks that can be purchased in little bags of assorted sizes at a craft store, if your bottles don't have a cap.  I got my corks at JoAnn Fabrics.  You can even age the corks a bit with Distress Ink so they don't look "raw", as new cork will look.

Happy Crafting,

Mitzi

Kwik Kewpie Krafting Using Decoupage

Do you tend to accumulate unused craft supplies like I do?  II happen to have a stash of wood plaques of all shapes and sizes, mostly unpainted, some left over from craft projects that never came to fruition.  One of my favorite shapes is the oval, and I've been waiting to find an image or collage composition that would look attractive on my oval plaques, which I plan to use as doorknob hangers.  At Mitzi's Collectibles, we believe that no interior doorknob should go undecorated!

As you can see, I also like to have some sugary treats on hand when I work on a project!  So after having these plaques in the back of my mind just about long enough, I came across some flamingo pink Kewpie wrapping paper for sale at an antique mall for $5.00.  Right away I knew I'd find several uses for the images, the first of which would be getting the Kewpies onto those wooden plaques using the easiest method possible.....with decoupage!

Because the little wrapping paper Kewpie images were lacking in color, I added a touch of blue and green here and there to make sure their blue wings were visible and their floral bouquets had a little more zing.  After that, I knew I had to make a trip to Staples to use their laser color copier.  I have an inkjet copier at home, and inkjet images won't take kindly to decoupage glue, unless you treat them with spray fixative.  Today, I thought the laser copier was a better solution.  I also needed to enlarge the pictures to fit onto my plaques, so I took a plaque with me to Staples to get just the right fit.

In the picture below, you can see how much I had to enlarge the wrapping paper image:

 

Next, I had to paint the edges and back of my wood plaques.  These required about three coats of craft paint, with time in between coats to dry.  Using primer first might have been a good idea.....

Next  I coated the unpainted side of the plaque with Mod Podge (I chose the Satin version) using a foam brush, laid the Kewpie image on it, rolled over it with a brayer to make sure it was smooth, then applied another coat of Mod Podge.  Later, when the plaque was dry to the touch, I flipped it over and coated the painted side with Mod Podge too, so both sides had the same finish to them.

 

After everything was dry, I added some embellishments.  I decided the Kewpies' bouquets should stand out more, so I tried sticky backed rhinestones on one of them, and felt circles with little millinery blossoms glued to some of the others.

In the lower right corner of the picture below you can see I tried a little bit of paper doily and some tiny pom poms on one of the bouquets:

The final step involved attaching a hanger to the back.  I had some pink grosgrain ribbon that looked pretty nice, so I hot glued that to the back in a loop large enough to hang on a doorknob, then added a little gathered bit of tulle ribbon for more interest:

 
I shared the steps to this project just to give you an idea of how to use found images in decoupage art.  If you like Kewpies too, click on my wrapping paper image and print it out.  You might also find inspiration in saved greeting cards, vintage postcards, or something from a photo album (maybe a picture of a beloved pet?)  You might also look online at The Graphics Fairy, a wonderful source for vintage images.  Just use your imagination and some Mod Podge and off you go!

Happy Crafting,

Mitzi

Dionne Quintuplets 101

Welcome to another post within my 101 series, my way of keeping interest in antiques and collectibles alive, hopefully adding to your knowledge base, or maybe sparking interest in a reader who might start a new collection.  In the world of antiques, there is always something new to learn.....or should I say something "old" to learn?

Before John and Kate Plus 8, before Octo Mom, there were the Dionne Quintuplets.  Their story is a fascinating one, and could have served as a cautionary tale about exploitation of "multiples"  that the Gosselin parents and Octo Mom should have been apprised of before they went public with their broods.

The Dionne quints were born on May 28, 1934 in Corbeil, Ontario, Canada.  They were five identical girls (all from one energetic splitting egg!), and each weighed less than two pounds.  Not really expected to survive, they were kept next to a wood-buring stove in their impoverished parents' home to keep warm.  They were the world's first surviving quintuplets, and immediately caused a sensation during the good-news-depleted depression.

As the thriving babies grew, the physician that delivered them, Dr. Dafoe, became a celebrity, especially after the quints were made wards of the Ontario government (the parents were deemed unfit to raise them).  A hospital, eventually known as "Quintland" was built right across the street from the Dionne's home.  Nurses would bring them one at a time to a balcony to show them to the waiting crowd.

 
Quintland eventually became a theme park, and the girls were put on display for up to 6,000 people a day who watched their activities such as eating or playing behind a one-way screen.  Quintland souvenirs were sold by the thousands. The adorable quints and Dr. Dafoe became very lucrative to advertisers and endorsed hundreds of products.  Just do a search on eBay for "Dionne quintuplets" and you'll see all sorts of Dionne memorabilia, like this adorable basket of the five baby girls: 

Can you believe this bizarre story?  It gets worse.  The parents were made to feel unwelcome at Quintland, as the evil Dr. Dafoe ran the show.  They girls were studied scientifically, X-rayed, filmed, poked and prodded.  The quints, named Cecile, Emilie, Marie, Annette, and Yvonne, recalled being viewed behind a gauze screen as hordes of visitors were ushered through a corridor.  They lived at Quintland for nine years, after which their parents were able to regain custody.  The girls lived with their parents and siblings until they were 18, then moved out and severed contact with their parents, claiming their father abused them.

 

There's much more to the story, very worthy of exploring further if you are interested.  To wind things up here, there are only two quints alive today, Annette and Cecile.  Emilie and Marie died as young women, ages 20 and 34.  Yvonne died at age 64.  Annette and Cecile are 75 years old and, believe it or not, have had to negotiate with the Ontario government to claim some of the money generated at Quintland.

There is still a lot of Dionne quint memorabilia floating about.  I often come across postcard sets depicting the photogenic girls or scenes of Quintland.  Magazines from the 1930's and 40's will have the occasional ad for cake mix the girls liked or some product Dr. Dafoe was endorsing.  More valuable quint collectibles include sets of five dolls, paper doll sets, or this very unusual folk art painting that recently sold on eBay for $3.499.99:

 
Below is a calendar top with a typical artistic rendering of the girls at play:

I found this baggie full of Dionne quint newspaper clippings and pictures at an auction recently.  If you had never heard of the Dionne quints, wouldn't you probably pass this by at a sale?  Now that you know a little bit, would you like to open up this baggie and see what's in there?  If so, my little post is a success!

Happy hunting for treasures this weekend, everyone!

Mitzi

Totally Random Thoughts & Minutia

I absolutely love the TV ad for KIA Sorento where the sock monkey, robot, and Muno are living la vida loca in their dreams......when they showed the sock monkey getting a "tattoo", I immediately wanted to write a letter to the creator of the ad to compliment them......I still might do it!  I love irreverent humor.

Here is a view of Pinocchio that is a precursor to the Disney/cutesy creation, sort of a blander and more effeminate version.  A little strange, isn't it?

And in the "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader" department, can you name the author of "Pinocchio"?  No, it isn't Walt Disney......it's Carlo Collodi.  That one took me by surprise.

Now speaking of strange, check out this ad for 7-Up.  It struck me as being totally wrong......giving 7-Up to a baby?  I don't think so......

 

And the text underneath read:

"For a fact, you can even give this sparkling drink to babies - and without any qualms.  Lots of mothers do just that!........Seven-Up has a special fresh, clean taste that appeals to everyone at your house - be he nine months, nine years, or ninety.  It's the All-Family Drink!

"Nothing Does it like Seven-Up!"

I'm probably aging myself unnecessarily, but when I found this old first grade reading book, it seemed very familiar.....did you learn to read with Dick and Jane?

When I came across this old Scrap Book, it immediately reminded me of Mary Engelbreit's art.  I'm sure it's from the late 1950's or early 1960's, well before Mary started designing products, so perhaps it was something she saw as a young girl and was inspired by it.  Who knows?

Here we have the summer Pottery Barn catalog which features lots of coral and shells.  So beautiful!

I'm glad these versions are resin replicas of real coral.  I would consider purchasing these for my home, but they might be a bit too "beachy" for Michigan.  Notice the vintage books used to lift parts of the display.  Old tattered books are totally hot right now, haven't you noticed?

There's a lot of buzz about the History Channel shows "American Pickers" and "Pawn Stars".  I keep forgetting to watch them, but I've seen both once or twice and think they're great.  I love any show where you can actually learn something while being entertained.  Much better than wasting time on some horrible sitcom like Dharma and Greg or whatever.  Ugh.

My mother clipped out this pic and sent it to me about a year ago.  Isn't this chair shockingly fun?  I'm not sure I could find a place for it in my home, but it's still intriguing......

Sorry for the lopsided image....it was truly torn from a catalog, and that's what I had to work with!

Last but not least, I want to thank all of the entrants in my giveaway.  I have been overwhelmed with all of the great feedback and compliments about my blog, and I have a feeling I've acquired some new followers.  I've even had folks from France and Australia enter......what a wonderful feeling that my little blog is being read across the globe!

 

Let's Gussy Up Some Hat Boxes

This project has made the rounds a bit.  I first wrote about hat box makeovers as a guest blogger for Lucky Star Lane last month.  This week, Amy Anderson of Mod Podge Rocks has selected my hat box makeover as Project of the Week.  Since the project was never actually posted on my blog, I decided I should resurrect it and plop it here!

If you visit flea markets, estate sales, antique stores, or even garage sales this summer, you'll eventually come across some hat boxes.  If you are lucky, they might be covered in wallpaper like one of my examples below.  Other times, they might be striped or have the name of the hat maker on them.  Other examples might just be dull.  Since these boxes can be so useful for storage, why not gussy them up so they can be displayed on top of an armoire or shelf in your bedroom or craft room instead or hidden in a closet?

Besides hat boxes, you will need:

   Foam brush

   Mod Podge or Collage Pauge

   Brayer to roll air bubbles out of applied images

   Images you wish to ad to your box. 

   Embellishments such as lace, fringe, or ric-rac

   Hot glue gun to attach embellishments

I keep a stockpile of laser copied paper ephemera for decoupage projects, including perfume and soap labels, Victorian trade cards, and old advertising.  I've even color copied packages of eyes and hooks and cards of buttons because I like the pleasing patterns.  Of course, you don't have to use copied vintage stuff.  Other suggestions would be sheet music, wrapping paper, or scrapbook paper.

Apply your Mod Podge to the back of the images with a foam brush, position them on your box in a pleasing configuration, and roll out any extra glue and air bubbles with a brayer.  You can use your fingers if you don't have a brayer, but it gets a bit messy!  Then, apply a layer of Mod Podge on top of your image.  Wait an hour or so, then coat the entire box with the Mod Podge.  This is just to give the surface an even appearance.  

When your box is dry, add some fun trims.  I used blue pom-pom fringe, brown lace, and gold Dresden trim.  Using a hot glue gun, apply your trim wherever you want.  That's it!

You can see I used the golden Dresden trim to frame the ladies' fashion print, and the lace that I glued around the rims of the box lids:

Here are a few tips:

If you elect to use Mod Podge, consider if it is gloss, matte, or satin.  The different finishes will affect your finished project.  Personally, I don't think gloss looks good on most paper projects.  I used the matte version on my boxes.

I filled in some empty spaces with rose stickers from a simple sticker sheet purchased at Michael's.

If you have an ink-jet printer, buy some spray fixative and coat your images at least once, otherwise the colors will run when you apply your glue.  Spray fixative is available in any art supply or craft store in an aerosol can.

Of course, you don't have to use vintage hat boxes.  You can buy papier-mache stacking boxes at any craft store that are ready to paint or decoupage. 

I hope you have a chance to pretty up some boxes of your own!

Mitzi

Appreciating Vintage Sewing Notions

Over the last 12 years, I have attended many auctions, estate sales, and garage sales looking for antiques to sell and vintage supplies for craft projects.  In the process, I've ended up with numerous sewing kits and baskets of sewing and needlecraft supplies.  I'm always fascinated by the glimpse of someone's life that one can get from a sewing basket.  Years ago, nothing went to waste.  Buttons from an old coat were carefully put away, tiny pearly buttons from a baby's outfit were strung together for future use, embroidery floss, sewing scissors, and other sewing accouterments treated with care and saved in the sewing basket.

 

I love old sewing needle cases, and I've scanned the images into my computer for possible use in one of my decoupage projects.

Even the insides of the cases have their own colored-foil beauty:

Is there a way to appreciate some of these sewing related items by getting them out of the box, so to speak?  Of course, we can use the scissors and seam rippers, but other things might not be so useful.  I've read that it's not good to use the older spools of thread, especially with the sewing machine, because the thread weakens with age and would be prone to breakage.  But those colorful spools.....they can still be appreciated simply as bowl fillers.  I thought I'd show some thread appreciation by piling some spools into my rusty Tonka truck for display.

I love the old labels on the ends of the spools:

 

I came across an entire jumbo pickle jar full of naked wooden spools.  I combined them with some tape measures, and filled an ironstone bowl with them:

I was amazed that I had a white, gold, black, and red printed tape measures in my saved sewing notions.  I never would have found a use for these if it weren't for the naked spools!  I just hot glued one end of the tape to the spool, wrapped it around a couple times, clipped the tape and secured the end with a little more hot glue.

So, next time you come across an old sewing tin, consider using the contents in some creative way.

Have fun creating,

Mitzi

Happy Easter From Mitzi's Collectibles

The weather here in Mid-Michigan couldn't be nicer....today it's supposed to reach 80 degrees!  That means that I will be starting on some outdoor projects that I've had lined up all winter.  I am treating myself to a one-hour, two-person cleaning by Molly Maids.  I just can't make time to clean my house when I have so many craft and antique-related projects going on.  I have priorities!

I can't let the Easter holiday go by without sharing some lovely old postcards with Easter themes.  I've found that Easter postcards are quite abundant, as compared to some other holidays like Halloween or Independence Day, and the colors are so fantastic.  I like the animals depicted too.  Over 100 years ago, the animals didn't have that cartoon/Disney/Hallmark cutesy-ness to them.  They looked more realistic, even when doing unrealistic-for-animals type activities, like a bunny pushing a cart.

Happy Easter, friends.  Have a safe weekend, if you are traveling, and be sure to take time to smell the daffodils!

Mitzi

Fun Reading From the Sickbed

Just as the weather was warming up, early bulb flowers beginning to bloom, I acquired some sort of nasty virus that laid me up for three days, the first two of which I couldn't sit upright long enough to check my e-mails or even read a magazine.  For me, that's bad.  But on the third day, I scooped myself out of bed and tried to get caught up on some reading.  I happened upon an old Harper's Monthly Magazine from November 1885, which served to remind me that I've gotten farther behind on my reading than I had originally thought. 

While reading, I came across an ad for Hale's Honey of Horehound and Tar, with the catchy tag line that reads:  "Wonderfully Remedial in all Cases Where the Organs of Respiration are Affected".  I've actually enjoyed horehound candy in the past, and I think if you want to give it a try you can probably pick some up at a Cracker Barrel restaurant.  As for the tar, well, wouldn't you just rather have a cough?

 

Next, without even Googling, I discovered that toilet paper existed way back in 1885, as the following ad for "Perforated Paper" shows.  Apparently, people had been using newspaper for, um, personal cleansing, which was causing some problems with "clogged pipes and impure air".  In fact, the chemicals on printed paper were thought to be a cause of hemorrhoids, and who am I to argue?  A consumer could choose between plain Perforated Paper or Medicated.

 

I started to get a bit thirsty after all that reading.  Maybe a nice mug of Horsford's Acid Phosphate would take care of things.  Sounds appetizing, doesn't it?  At least the trade card is attractive, I love the periwinkle color:

As soon as I feel hale and hearty again, I might like to try some of the Durkee's Salad Dressing and Cold Meat Sauce.  As the ad says, "all of its ingredients are of the purest and the best, and it will keep good for years".  Maybe ingesting four year old condiments is what got me into this situation to begin with.....

By the way, I love the Raven Gloss Shoe Dressing ad above, don't you?  What a cool image! 

Besides getting caught up on some reading, I also expanded my medical vocabulary this week.  Have you ever heard of "catarrh"?  Catarrh is mucus, basically.  Then there's "dropsy".  I've heard of dropsy before but never knew what it was.  Well, it's swelling, or edema.  It has nothing to do with dropping anything.  And many of you might already know that "consumption" is tuberculosis.

I hope you have a healthy week, friends!

Mitzi