Tag: home decor

A Family Like Servants

The seller of these vintage embroidered kitchen towels describes them thus:

Vintage servant’s doing their domestic jobs are embroidered on white cotton dish towels. Features Suzette the maid, Charlie the laundry, Brooks the butler and Matt the gardner.

Frankly, I don’t seem them as towels for the servants — but towels for the family. Each family member has their own chores and their own hand towels to remind them of them. As a mom, I say that a lack of use of one’s towel signifies either no chores were done, or no clean up afterwards. Or that Charlie’s really on top of the laundry. But not even a Chinese laundry man can wash the racism off that towel.

Creepy Vintage Chalkware Babies

So, you’re decorating the old nursery, and you think it would be awesome to hang babies on the wall? I bet you also can’t understand why the baby cries every time you tuck her in.

How about just some severed baby faces on the wall? I bet you think your baby has colic; there’s no other reason baby should cry all the time…

There are creepy chalkware babies, there are really creepy chalkware babies — and then there are racist chalkware babies. Like this vintage chalkware string-holder featuring a little African-American baby on watermelon. I may go to bed crying just having seen that.

Image Credits: 1940s Plast Plak Hand Painted Chalkware Wall Baby via Bayutiful; Vintage Chalkware Happy Baby Face and Vintage Chalkware Crying Baby Face via ephemerascenti; and the vintage racist stringholder via midwestscout.

Blue Poodles

I posted a vintage blue poodle treasury at Etsy, of which this one is my current favorite. Along with being vintage, blue, and a poodle — wearing glasses, yet! — this one combines my love of fur on figurines and is both a bobblehead and a bank!

It would have been this one, but I already have it!

The Circle Of Kitsch

Remember back, when the Internet was young, and the most fascinating thing was to search for the exotic… Finding pages published by people far away from you, on subjects and things you’d never heard of before. Now, one of the most important things is to find things right in your own backyard. Things you know about — enough to want, anyway. If the price is right. Things you want, and at the best price; thanks, Internet.

Sure, some of the exotic thrills are still a large part of our daily Internet use. But beyond the entertainment and educational value, so much of our time is now spent comparison shopping — and we seek the added bonus of supporting our local economies. Well, maybe it’s just the convenience of saving on shipping combined with the instant gratification of a local pickup. Tomato, tomatoe; the results are the same.

I was tooling about such a place, www.CentrSource.ca, “Things you love, where you live.” Unexpectedly, however, I found myself discovering the delightful Kitsch Hotel, a youth hostel in Lisbon, Portugal. It’s not near home, but it is a thrifty way to travel. And it’s loaded with kitsch!

Photos via The Kitsch Hostel Blog. A number of clever ideas seen here sent me back to CentrSource for project supplies. …Ah, the circle of kitsch.

Sit On It Like It’s ’68

In this photo from Jardin des Modes, December 1968, a model sits in a mod chair by Roche et Bobois. The Martian Ball Chair, with a white shell and red interior, is now on sale for 80% off.

Craft Scan Friday: Sales Demonstration For Candle Making

A sales demonstration for Glo Candles, circa 1950s. Found in The Glo Candle For All Occasions, The Glow Candle Co., Kansas City, Missouri; copyright 1952 and 1956 by Consumers Cooperative Association.

Modern Woman Mondays: Bored Housewife Edition

Estell and Patsy were ahead of their house cleaning – and ahead of their time, for certainly they ought to have had their own television show.

Photo via Lynnstudios.