National Coloring Book Day

Today, August 2nd, is National Coloring Book Day! Or so the Dover Publications people tell me. I know it's really just an advertising gimmick, but I love coloring books, so I'm definitely in favor of a national holiday to celebrate them.

I've always loved to color, and kept a stash of coloring books long before the hobby became a national craze. Over the years I've collected quite a pile of them, so I thought I'd show off a few.

I think probably the oldest book in my collection is this Children's Hour Painting Book for Little Folks, published by M.A. Donohue & Co.

It's from 1913 and was a Christmas gift to "Wm-Cecil Walker" from his Aunt Nellie.

I believe it's actually meant for watercolor painting, but would also be perfect for crayons. It has some very sweet nursery rhyme type illustrations.

And many of the pictures include duplicate colored images, to serve as examples.

Most of these pages are untouched, so I guess this wasn't very popular with Wm-Cecil. But as you can see, he (or someone) did attempt a few of these.

One of my favorites in the collection is this Super Market Coloring Contest book from the early 1950s. Don't you love the way the original owner "decorated" the cover image?

The pictures in these books usually were tie-ins with products the stores sold, and this one is no exception.

Inside they always had the rules and some sort of entry form to fill out:

This entry was started by Mario Lewis, but apparently Mario didn't end up entering the contest after all. I used to love these things, but like Mario I never entered any of the contests. And that was a shame because look at all the cool prizes I could have won!

Vintage Thingie Thursday: Costume Critters

Vintage Thingie Thursday is hosted by Suzanne at Coloradolady, and as she says, "Thursday is the day to showcase your vintage treasures and to share your special things with everyone." Please visit her blog to find out more about VTT or to participate yourself.

I don't usually wear much costume jewelry, so it's a little odd that I've ended up with a fairly large collection of the stuff. Most of it was given to me by family or friends, and I've just hung on to it over the years. Today (for my first Vintage Thingie Thursday post in many months), I thought I'd share a few of my "critter" pins. Some of these are just about the only pieces in the collection that I actually do wear from time to time. The butterfly at the top left of the photo is a stick pin and is unmarked. The one on the right, with the two pearls, is marked Winard on the back. Each one is around a half-inch wide, and both date probably from the late 1950s to early 1960s. (Click on photos to enlarge.)


I think these little enameled honeybee scatter pins are probably the oldest pieces in the crowd. They date from the late 1940s or early 1950s and are unmarked, as far as I can make out. They're each less than a half inch wide, and I used to wear them all in a bunch on sweaters.


This blue and white flying bug is another unmarked pin. It's about an inch and a quarter wide, from wing tip to wing tip. It probably dates from the late 1950s.

I do wear these frogs occasionally. The larger one is almost two inches long, from his nose, to the the tip of his toe. They date from (I believe) around 1960, and they're marked Denicola.

I think this owl is my favorite of this group. He's a little over an inch tall, and he's marked Coro on the back. He was a gift from my Aunt Linnie. She worked most of her life as a costume jewelry buyer for several large department stores, and a lot of my collection has come down to me from her. I don't know how old this one is, but I know I used to wear it when I was in elementary school, so he's getting pretty ancient now!

Vintage Thingies Thursday: A Doll for Christmas

Vintage Thingies Thursday is hosted by Suzanne at Coloradolady, and as she says, "Thursday is the day to showcase your vintage treasures and to share your special things with everyone." Please visit her blog to find out more about VTT or to participate yourself.


Some little girls are doll lovers and some aren't. I was definitely one. As a child, I always received at least one doll every Christmas. I guess that's where my tendency to collect things (dolls among them) got started. Several eons ago (well, sometime in the 1950s), I received my first Ginny Doll for Christmas one year. Designed by dollmaker Jennie Graves, the Ginnys were made by the Vogue Doll Corporation, and were 8-inches of very sturdy hard plastic. They were also adorable.

Ginnys were all the rage just before Barbie hit, and just like the Pink Princess, they had tons of outfits and accessories - all sold separately, of course. They were very addictive - so much so that I had to have another one the next Christmas. Well, I didn't want Ginny No. 1 to be lonely.

Not long after I received that first Ginny, I took her out into the backyard and took some photos of her and my other dolls, with my mother's old Kodak Brownie camera. The blurriness of the pictures probably reflects my photographic ability at about age seven, more than the quality of the equipment. Here are a couple of those original shots (click on photos to enlarge):



And as a testament to the longevity of those Golden Age toys, here's that same doll in the same outfit, some fifty years later, enjoying yet another Christmas. All I can say is I'm a Vintage Thingie myself, and I wish I'd held up this well. And a Merry Christmas to all!





Added 12/25/2009: Just want to say thanks very much to the Holidailies panel of readers for choosing this post as one of the "Best of Holidailies" selections. I've read a lot of the other entries, and I'm not sure I'm really worthy of that company - there's some pretty impressive writing in the bunch. So it's quite a thrill!

VTT and Holidailies: Vintage Cards, Part 1

Vintage Thingies Thursday is hosted by Suzanne at Coloradolady, and as she says, "Thursday is the day to showcase your vintage treasures and to share your special things with everyone." Please visit her blog to find out more about VTT or to participate yourself.

I know, I know. It's almost not Thursday anymore. My only excuse is that all the Christmas-ing has got me forgetting what day of the week it is.

I've always collected greeting cards. I've even got the cards and gift enclosures that were sent to my mother when I was born! OK - I didn't actually collect those; she did. But I've always loved cards. When I was a pre-schooler, one of my favorite games was playing with my mother's collection of old greeting cards and gift tags. She kept them in shoe boxes. And hat boxes. Big hat boxes. So I guess it must be an inherited trait.

My aunt used to save Christmas cards, too. Some of my collection came from her. Some of the ones she particularly liked, she would frame and hang around her various apartments. Like these:



But today, I wanted to show a few of the vintage Scottie cards in my collection. Most of these are even older than I am - the Scottie cards were popular in the 1930s and '40s, I suppose because of the popularity of President Roosevelt and his pet Scottie Fala. Here's a sampling (click on photos to enlarge):

Vintage Thingies Thursday: Little Lulu Comics

I've been sorting through photos lately, and discovered some shots of my comic book collection. It's mostly in storage right now, but I thought I'd share a few pix, since these books are definitely "vintage thingies."

One of my first literary heroines was Lulu Moppet. Created and initially drawn by Marjorie Henderson Buell (who signed herself "Marge"), Little Lulu first appeared in the 1930s as a single-frame cartoon in the back pages of the Saturday Evening Post Magazine. Well, I'm old – but that was just a bit before my time. I first met Little Lulu in the 1950s, in the comic books produced by the Dell Publishing Company. I've always thought of Lulu as one of the first feminists in children's literature. She was a tough little lady – plucky, resourceful, and imaginative. She was also very funny.

I loved the stories and the artwork. And the covers were always one of the greatest attractions – many of them with wonderful seasonal illustrations such as these (click on photos to enlarge):






































But my favorites were always the Dell Giants issued several times a year, especially at Halloween time. They were bigger than the regular monthly comics, and more costly – a whole 25 cents as opposed to the regular 10 cents I usually had to pay. And they also had great covers, as you can see. (Sorry about the quality of the photos – most of these were taken years ago, before I went digital.)





Vintage Thingies Thursday is hosted by Suzanne at Coloradolady, and as she says, "Thursday is the day to showcase your vintage treasures and to share your special things with everyone." Please visit her blog to find out more about VTT or to participate yourself.

Vintage Thingies Thursday: Children's Patterns

Although I haven't done any sewing in quite a while, I love to collect old patterns. For a while, back in the '80s and '90s you could find really interesting, really old printed patterns in thrift shops and yard sales for just pennies each. That's all changed now – some of the same patterns I scooped up for ten cents a piece are going for ten bucks or more on eBay right now. Every now and then the hubby starts making noises about the money we could be making by unloading my "collection," but (fortunately) the patterns are all hidden away in a storage bin at the moment – too much trouble to dig them out.

Some of my favorites are the patterns for children's clothes. These are a few examples from several different periods. It's interesting to see how kids' fashion has changed in the last century or so, and how the look of the patterns themselves has changed, too. Sorry about the quality of the photos – they were all taken several years ago, before I packed everything up for storage. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

Most of these early patterns aren't dated, but these are two of the oldest; probably from the post-WWI, early 1920s period.

More from the 1920s, for little flappers.

I love these little hat patterns, also probably from the 1920s.

These look like they're probably from the 1930s.
Very Shirley Temple, don't you think?

A couple from the late 1940s or the 1950s, with aprons or pinafores. I would have worn something like this to school everyday.

Another one from the 1950s, very fancy. I remember my mother making me something very similar for a school play when I was about six or seven. But I came down with tonsillitis and never got to wear it. Bummer.

And finally, a couple from the 1960s or early '70s. Even the kiddies were mod.

Vintage Thingies Thursday is hosted by Suzanne at Coloradolady, and as she says, "Thursday is the day to showcase your vintage treasures and to share your special things with everyone." Please visit her blog to find out more about VTT or to participate yourself.