Mid Century Christmas Wishes

One of my favorite children's book illustrators are the husband-wife team of Martin and Alice Provensen. They also did a wonderful set of screen printed Christmas cards illustrating the 12 Days of Christmas. The cards were done in the 1960's and I've been looking for them to purchase for a number of years. This year, I got (half) lucky. Etsy seller Finds of the Attic had 6 of the cards for sale. Now, to find the rest of the series!

There still some sets from Finds in the Attic available - buy your own here.

Vintage Christmas

Vintage Illustration

I found this vintage 1959 Polish book on Ebay. The title is "Children's Poems" and it has wonderful illustrations. The illustrator is Helena Winogradow-Matuszewska. I can't find anything about her in English.

Cecil

In honor of Cecil the Lion, I'm posting this tea towel by mid-century designer Tammis Keefe.

RIP Cecil

Record Album Art

Sometimes when I'm bored at lunchtime, I stop by the local Goodwill to see what's for sale. This week I found 2 fun vintage record albums.

The first one is The Adventures of Peter Cottontail and dates from 1951. The graphics are nice and would look great framed in a child's room.

The second album is "Big" Tiny Little's Honky Tonk Hootenanny. Even the name is fun! Big Tiny Little was a piano player and a regular on the Lawrence Welk show in the 1950's. His bowler hat was one of his signatures. I'm not sure the date of this album but I believe it is from the 1960's.

Poodles

Another find at the flea market was this vintage paint-by-numbers picture of two adorable poodles. I'm not usually a fan of this style but they caught my eye and had to come home with me. I'll be putting them up for sale in my Etsy shop as soon as I find a shipping box.

Paint-By-Numbers Poodle Painting

Flea Market Find

Last Sunday I went to the flea market and found this fabulous mid century box. I had to have it. I didn't even care about the contents - a little brush and scoop for dusting up table crumbs. The pattern reminds me of something done by Swedish designer Stig Lindberg but since neither the box or the contents are marked in any way I'll just have to wish. The cat was an ebay purchase and is done by Swedish designer Lisa Larson while the white pitcher in back was long ago flea market find.

New Valentine Cards

I created two new Valentine cards this year. The first one is letterpress printed from calligraphy I did a few years ago. It's printed on a nice pearlescent paper.

The second card is printed from vintage wood letterpress type. I was trying to get away from having every Valentine's card red and pink so I printed this one in red and aqua. I've always liked this color combination. It's blank inside so could be used for other occasions.

Both cards are available in my Etsy shop.

Vintage Graphics

I found this cool magazine from 1960. I particularly like the mix of fonts in the title. The magazine was published by Edwin H. Stuart, Inc "Type Stylists for Advertising". It was a monthly magazine published for the Pittsburgh graphic arts industry. The magazine is not very interesting inside but does feature a whole page of sexists jokes. I guess there weren't a whole lot of women in the Pittsburgh graphic arts industry in 1960.

Vintage Find

I found this great vintage coffee pot at my local junk shop. I love the mustard color and am SO tempted to keep it but, I have way to much stuff so it's for sale in my vintage shop, Two Hand Too.

The ceramic bird was purchased from Etsy shop Mungo and Midge and flew all the way to me from Ireland.

In My Office

Here are a few things I have on display in my office. The cups are by Avon and once held lotion. They are sitting on 3 books from the Penguin poets series that date from the late 1950's. The books are collectible for the patterned covers. I got these at my local library sale room for $1 each. The bird is actually a tape dispenser and I purchased it and washi tape from cutetape.com. In the background, a Walt Disney record album (Zoo Songs) and a tag made from 1970's wall paper that I got from PommeduJour on Etsy. The tag perfectly compliments the Avon cup in front of it!

New Shop

I decided to open another Etsy shop for my collages. They don't really fit in with the letterpress and I also want to keep the vintage shop separate so,  a new shop -Two Hand Gallery.  Here is one of the new collages that is in the shop.

I like how all of the type becomes pattern. I used vintage music and advertising, an old ledger page, and a document from India combined with acrylic paint and hand made papers.

Record Album Covers 2

I found this jazz album on Ebay --I love the bird and the groovy type. It dates from 1963 and the cover art was done by Don Weller. You can see more of his album cover art here.

Record Album Covers

Every once in a while, I go to the Goodwill in hopes of finding something that looks like junk but worth a million dollars. So far, hasn't happened. What I HAVE found are some fun vintage record albums for a buck. I don't even care what the record is like as long as the cover has cool graphics. The Russian Accordion album below was only the front of the album-no vinyl in sight ( The Goodwill gave me that one for free). The last LP shown has cover art by award winning American illustrator Joseph Low. Not only did he illustrate children's books, but was also known for his New Yorker covers. You can read a little more about him here.

Did you know that the Goodwill has a website (www.shopgoodwill.com) and you can bid on items from Goodwill shops all over the country? The photos are usually pretty bad (worse than Ebay) and little info is given on the items but it's fun to check out the site every once in a while and search for bargains. Check it out here.

Flea Market Sunday

Well, I've found a new flea market to shop. On the fourth Sunday every month is the year old Topanga Vintage Market in the parking lot of the Promenade Mall in Woodland Hills, CA. There were many vendors I had never seen  before, and some I had purchased from at other markets. Here are some of my favorites of the day.

 

The trunk full of old frames was from Porthole Vintage, who also happens to have an Etsy shop. You can see more of their items here.

Vintage Cottage Finds offered all sorts of vintage crafting goodies and decor like the velvet ribbon and sparkly Christmas trees in delicious pastel colors. I purchase vintage wallpaper sheets to use in my collages. They also have an Etsy shop which you can find here. 

I loved these Kantha quilts from Kismet. These quilts are made from vintage textiles in India using Fair Trade. They were all so colorful and the backs were made from completely different, coordinating fabric. After much comparing and debating, I finally chose one (second photo). The back uses fabric with the same orange combined with pink. You can find out more about Kismet here.

This booth had lots of repurposed garden-themed items all beautifully displayed- unfortunately they don't seem to have a website.

Flea Market Finds- Cigar Boxes

I collect a lot of stuff-buttons, birds, vintage children's books...and wood boxes. I have vintage cheese boxes, vintage sewing machine drawers, vintage knife trays. In my world, anything that will hold my stuff counts as a box. I have lots of them mounted on the wall or on shelves housing collections. Some hold wood letterpress type. One holds spools of ribbon.


I found these cigar boxes at the City College flea market in Pasadena and couldn't say no. My favorite is the "Mack's Best". I love the type and decorative borders. There is a bit of the label on the inside and it closes with a brass clasp. I've searched but can find no info on the company.



 I like these other boxes because they are divided (look at those cute knobs on the front!). Useful in so many ways, one is already holding jewelry supplies. One will probable be put to use holding letterpress type and if I can find a spot, will go on the wall.  And the third with the handle?  Well, I haven't found the perfect spot yet,

Bingo and Buttons

Bingo cards are also an excellent was to display a button collection. I love vintage mother-of-pearl buttons and sewed these from my collection onto a bingo card. The cards I did my collages on were really thick but many bingo cards are thin enough to stitch through.

The crocheted pincushion on the left was purchased from etsy shop Namolio. You can see more of her lovely work here and here

New Collages

I haven't done any collages for awhile but I had purchased a stack of vintage bingo cards and I got inspired. (The bingo cards are large and measure 5.5" x 7.25".)

This collage was made using a butterfly printed on an old letter, rubber stamps, hand made papers and a part of an old (bus?) ticket.

This collage was made using a piece of a label from sandalwood soap purchased in Chinatown, hand made eraser stamps, hand made paper, a Russian (postal?) stamp, and letterpress scraps known as make-ready. Make-ready is the paper that you test print on to get the color and positioning correct-some pieces are used over and over and build up interesting textures and patterns.

This last collage is made using rubber stamps, letterpress make-ready, hand made papers, vintage wallpaper and postage stamps. I had so much fun doing these that I think I'll have to get more bingo cards!

Book Covers

Here are some of my favorite covers from my collection of (mainly) children's books. They include illustrations by Alice and Martin Provensen (The Little Fat Policeman), German illustrator Janosch (The Yellow Auto Named Ferdinand), Mary Blair (I Can Fly), Ezra Jack Keats (The Snowy Day), Art Seiden (Never Pat A Bear), and Swedish illustrator Ylva Kalstrom (The Old Man and the Bird).