Tag: 1970s

Craft Scan Friday: “Your Home Will Bloom With Color”

This bit of ephemera, Artex Hobby Products, Inc. Pattern Booklet No. 731, copyright 1973, illustrates a bit of the history of women working from home.

Artex Hobby Products, Inc., of Lima Ohio, is no longer in business; but it was a member of the Direct Selling Association. The following scans are of the pages outlining the benefits of becoming an Artex Instructor, i.e. selling the Artex product line via party plans, and the pages for the Artex Painting Class hostesses, who receive Artex merchandise as their Hostess Awards.

You can, quite easily, earn $10 to $100 per week in your spare time, without neglecting your family…by joinng the Artex Family today.

A trip to Paris, a color TV, even a new car could be yours as these are just a few of the many wonderful extras that are awarded to Artex Instructors throughout the year.

“The Electric Company Gang Jokes Around To Make Reading More Fun”

If not a little, err, sexually uncomfortable.

Two-page illustrated joke from The Electric Company Joke Book, edited by Byron Preiss, Jack Rickard drew the pictures. (A Golden Book, published by Western Publishing Company; copyright 1973, The Children’s Television Workshop).

I do love me the Easy Reader logo (lower right corner of the cover).

Big Wheel, It’s A Retro Pinup

Her sucker says, “I Ate The Whole Thing!” but what really gives the photo its zing is the fact that this pinup poses on a Mattel Big Wheel.

Photo, circa 1960s, via bondman2.

Craft Scan Friday: For Kids Who Get Coal In Their Stockings

This retro craft idea isn’t particularly exceptional — other than the fact that it was published in 1971 and refers to the project as “Making a Coal Glove.” Yes, a reference to coal gloves in 1971, specifically for children. The author, if not a teacher herself, was at least writing to them, perhaps was anticipating lots of naughty children who were familiar with Santa’s list of coal deliveries.

The Aliens Are Coming! (But Don’t Worry, They’re Bringing Their Own Giant Decapitated Heads)

Itty bitty flying saucers carrying giant human heads, why worry?

The cover of Night Of The Saucers by Eando Binder, author of Menace of the Saucers; published by Unibook, copyright 1971. Artists name is really difficult to make out… Perhaps John Cayon?

Text from the back cover:

ALIEN INTERVENTION

It was Earth’s darkest hour. Weak, backward, prey to attack, it could only be saved by the Vigilantes. Sci-fi writer Thane Smith and his beautiful, adored wife Miribel, had the task of discrediting UFO stories. But how could they after they ran up against a playboy-monster who could only have been created by an alien race?

Yup, it’s just moved to the top of my reading pile.

Craft Scan Friday: Make Paper Furniture For A Doll House

The author’s advice: “Old shoe boxes make excellent houses.” (I think she means for dolls, not the homeless; but in this economy, perhaps we might consider some of the options.)

Wouldn’t it be ironic to make paper furniture for your vintage paper dollhouse from the pages in this book?

From Play With Paper by Thea Bank-Jensen; Scholastic Book Services © 1962 (my copy is the third printing, July 1973).

Retro Potty Humor

My parents are coming to visit for a few days, and I’m super excited to see their reaction to my retro chalk toilet seat:

Stand close, its shorter than you think.

Complete with retro 70’s flowers. And only 75 cents!

PS Hubby, of course, says it only applies to company. *wink*

Last Minute Space Costumes

From Simple Toymaking, by Sheila Jackson (1966), how to make a “Dalek mask (for imaginary space creature).”

(Missing instructions, from next page: Protect acetate with paper and spray mask with a silver paint aerosol.

Get yourself some tinfoil and a deep purple wig, modify the bangs with a scissors, and Voila! you’re a moonbase women of UFO.

Everybody Loves A Cow Girl

If this vintage cow girl costume doesn’t make you wanna play dress up (for Halloween or otherwise), I doubt little will.

I’m pretty sure there will be witnesses who remember her committing this train robbery.

Great for rounding up cattle — and pugs.

Now that I’ve sold you on how practical this is, let’s get down to some facts… It’s said to be a 1950s burlesque costume — though with the Marie’s Custom Uniforms label maybe it was an equally cool, in my opinion, diner waitress uniform. The gun holster is from the 70s and the pistol a new prop.

Now that you’re packin’ heat, may I interest you in a duel with a pistol blow dryer?

Salvador Dali: The Boy In The Bubble

Time magazine (January 4, 1960) says Dali’s space age suit is gold, not silver as your black & white photograph reading brain might tell you. Also that article describes the Ovocipede as “a transparent plastic sphere that rolls merrily along while its operator sits comfortably.” Can anyone say “hamster ball”?

More from the April 1960 issue of Popular Mechanics:

Found via Pour 15 Minutes, which gives a date of December, 1959; the Fanantique photos are from the December 7, 1972 presentation at the Palais des glaces. (Just four years later, I would see Travolta star in The Boy In The Plastic Bubble. I probably cried.)

Normally I don’t recommend asking “why” when it comes to Dali; I believe his greatest talent ultimately lay in his ability to live life — and not asking about limits. However, it appears Dali didn’t drive and eschewed air travel until late in his life, so perhaps that’s why he invented such a mode of transportation.