Craft Scan Friday: Funny Bag Costumes For You & Your Doll

From Funny Bags by Betsy Pflug, instructions for making a mermaid costume for your doll and a hula costume, which I guess is “for you”, out of paper bags. I’m not sure what to make of this, really. As usual, I scan stuff that tickles me; but sometimes when it comes to posting it, even I wonder why. Anywho, if you’re in need of a cheap and easy costume — for you and your doll, you’d best answer the “paper or plastic” question with “paper.”

How We Travel(ed)

More pages with photos from How We Travel, by James Franklin Chamberlain, an antique school reader. Shown here are a Belgian milk-cart, pulled by a dog, and a “peculiar vehicle” called the jaunting car, from Ireland, pulled by a horse.

Those 70’s TV Shows

I just scored some vintage new old stock (NOS) TV show books and stuff from Whitman Publishing. Among them a Fat Albert activity book (just in time for his 40th birthday) and a Donny & Marie coloring book with paper dolls of the duo on the back. (Inside you can color and then cut out the fashions for the dolls; but, nope, there’s no Mormon undies to color inside.) I’ve a few more goodies from this stash to sell and share here at Kitschy Kitschy Coo, so stay tuned!

Zero The Clown

Learning math with Zero, a tricky clown. Page 82 in Study Arithmetics, Grade Three, by F.B. Knight, G.M. Ruch, J.W. Studebaker, W.C. Findley, and William S. Gray; published by Scott, Foresman and Company, last copyright date 1943. (See my article on on old school books and primers.)

To Boldly Go Where Aliens Have Already Been

We can thank New Wave Science Fiction and its experimental “what if” nature of soft science for everything from Star Trek (and so fake Spock toys) to works which emphasized “hypothesis” of ancient human-extraterrestrial contact. It’s the last group, the sensationalized books which are the fodder of Roswell conspiracists, which seem to find me. Like this stack of retro paperbacks. Hey, Star Trek may have been the most accurate in terms of technological predictions; but Chariots Of The Gods has given us all Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. Yeah, that’s not much of a defense. But a few of them might be kind of fun to read… Or not. I can’t promise anything in any direction.

Old Wacky Packages, New New New!

On April Fool’s Day, Topps released Wacky Packages Book New New New, a hardcover book celebrating the iconic, infantile, and insane stickers which kids like me were so stuck on in the 1970s. Like the first volume, this book packs in the images of the product parodies on glossy pages, with art three-times the size of the original stickers. Also like the first book, this one comes wrapped in a waxy dust jacket to resemble the original packs of stickers — and there are even four never-before-seen Wacky Package stickers inside.

Mercifully, there’s no gum. Just images of it. And that’s enough to remind me of the pain one endured to get those stickers. After all, mom and dad were watching; you had to at least appear to like the gum to ensure you could buy more stickers.

Christmas In Hollywood Homes (1946)

From the pages of Modern Woman magazine, volume 15 number 7, 1946, two pages of vintage movie star holiday Q & A. Specifically the famous Hollywood folks were asked to name:

1) Favorite Christmas Story
2) Favorite Christmas Song
3) When Gifts Are Opened
4) Best-Remembered Gift

The celebrities included are, Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Ray Milland, Betty Hutton, Jack Carson, Alan Ladd, Joan Caulfield, Peggy Ann Garner, Lon McCallister, Lynn Bari, Peggy Cummins, Victure Mature, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Robert Hutton, Martha Vickers, and Bette Davis.

As to be expected, I suppose, the most named Christmas story was Christmas Carol. My favorite was Jack Carson’s answer:

A story translated from Norwegian — doesn’t remember the name.

Maybe it was a translation of the Norwegian translation of A Christmas Carol.

My favorite answers were the ones naming their best-remembered gift.

Van Johnson’s:

His first fan, a mid-western Scandinavian grandmother, sent him a pair of Arguyle socks she herself knit. Because of his grateful thanks, she has kept his supplied with socks ever since.

Lucille Ball’s:

About ten years ago she was seriously injured — paralyzed — in an automobile accident. At Christmas everyone gave her gifts for an invalid — except her mother. Mother Ball gave her a new bicycle, and with it the assurance that she would walk again.

Jack Carson’s:

A puppy, part collie and part German shepherd. He was eight years old and living in Milwaukee. “I’ve never had a gift that thrilled me more.”

For what it’s worth, Bette Davis had “no specially-remembered gift.” Neither did Victor Mature — however, he was “emphatic about what he wants this Christmas; a new house! Victor, like thousands of other Americans, is desperate for a home.”

The whole this is as post-war American as pie.

The photo used on the first page is of Margaret O’Brien and “Butch” Jenkins who appeared together in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, discussing “the possibility of Santa getting down the Jenkins chimney.”

Jane Powell, Roddy MacDowell, George Murphy (and son Denny with train set), and Diana Lynn appear in photos on the second page.