Life Magazine - Time Machine

I love looking at old magazines. They are a fun step back in time. And while the articles can be fun to read, for me anyway, it's the ads that really tell the tale.

We went to an estate auction recently and one of the boxes of crap treasures we came home with had a 1954 Life Magazine in it. I'm going to reap a few blog posts from it, as it's a great issue all about fashion, but I'm going to start with one about the ads.

 Get a load at that price! $2.95 for the set. Do you know what complete sets of those Anchorglass Mixing Bowls sell for today? Ones in good condition bring over $100.00.. that's some appreciation rate!
 I love how the two women in this Briggs and Statton lawn mower ad are both mowing the grass in skirts. 

 What a fancy dress for admiring the new window air conditioner!

These just made me giggle. From the lady in the flamenco dancer dress who's constipation worries are over, the innovative step stool that lets housewives "work relaxed", and the woman who dreamed she flew a kite in her new Maidenform bra!

 Here's two more things we can all be thankful for. The invention of a better toilet bowl brush and the 10 key calculator!

Do you eat open face hot dogs with a knife and fork? I guess you'd have to! And how fun is this Libby's Pineapple juice ad?

 Never forget... if you want to win the boys, stay sweet as you are! And of course that starts with Listerine mouth wash! heheh

      
 I guess some things were lost in translation over the years. I'm not really sure how shrinking cotton causes you to be "swept away".. and besides.. when your waist is as small as your neck do you really need to worry about your clothes shrinking?

The "48 states" caught my attention. It wasn't for another five years after this magazine issue that Alaska and Hawaii joined the union and we became 50 states. 

 Due to my watch fetish I had to pay homage to this old Timex ad. I just don't know why the pups look so sad. They're advertising watches! What's there to be sad about?

And I guess after an evening of watching the little woman hang the wallpaper, she could go to the kitchen

where she could sit on her step stool and relax while she cooked dinner using her "pride and joy" Wear-Ever pots and pans! 

Thanks for stepping back in time with me. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did. 

Have a great week :)

I'll be joining DebbieDoos and other fun parties this week, check out my Link Parties page for the complete list.

Flea Market Adventure

There's a flea market near our house each weekend. Mr.ShowMe and I decided to venture out to it today. It's blazing hot here, more typical of 4th of July weather than Memorial Day weekend. We figured we could get out to the flea market early and be back home long before the hottest part of the day. I found some real treasures and captured many more on film like this pressed glass compote. 

Here's a little peak of our adventure. 


It's a popular place.

An old large domed glass oval frame with a baby photo. I always find these to be sweet, but a little creepy too.

 Some pretties placed on an antique dresser.

 Old cast iron.

 A doll house.

It wasn't all old items there. This dealer had fishing stuff, here's a just a few of his tubs of rubber worms.

An old pink grocery scale and a really cool stylized bird lamp base.

 Check out this neat old hat box!

And these gorgeous vintage dresses!

Several dealers had tables full of old oil lamps. These were particularly lovely.

Old teddy bears and their little black lamb friend.

The bright colors in this old painting really grabbed my attention.

More oil lamps.. these with metal bases.

This old Sante Fe railroad clock reads Hollywood Cal. on the face.

 This old rocker upholstered in red velvet was in really good condition.

I couldn't walk by without taking pictures of the old sewing machines.

Retro Anchor Hocking Fire King Tulip Bowls. (Their condition was so perfect, Mr. ShowMe and I wondered if they were repros.)

Here's an electric typewriter probably from the early 70's with the case and the proud union label from a time in history when we still manufactured things here in the U.S. and a World's Fair poster that might be a repro, but still had cool graphic images.

A really big wheel!

This dealer had a neat assortment of old, tiny, stuffed animals and had them arranged in and on a tiny wooden dresser.

Here's the items that were too tempting to leave behind.

A dealer had a basket of vintage fabric that contained a bag with 39 pieces of sample fabric. Each piece is 11" wide by 9" tall. There are 3 or 4 color variations of each print. I think they're upholstery samples. They're lovely and just the thing to use for some bags I'm going to make, (stay tuned for that!). They only wanted $2 for the bag, so they came home with me.

This tiny (3.25" diameter) Hot Springs souvenir plate came home with me too. It would have to be The Bargain Of The Day since it was free! I collect Florida souvenir plates, so I always look when I see one to see if it's from Florida. I just couldn't believe it when I saw it said Hot Springs. That isn't in Florida, rather Arkansas, but it's where I lived with my Grandmother when I graduated high school, so I just had to have it. When I asked the dealer the price, he told me, "It's yours". I tried to insist that I pay him something, but he told me again that I could just have it, so I quit arguing and put it in my camera case for safe keeping till I got home.

Old watches are great to craft with so at $2 that Elgin was mine, and when the dealer told me those disc earrings were only $1, I decided to find a second pair for the price and selected the turquoise drops with the red beads too.

So here's my whole $7 haul. (I keep telling Mr. ShowMe that I'm a cheap date. I think this proves it!)

The clamps and note pads for $1 rounded out the rest. I'm always scrounging around for clamps and clips to hold things until the glue dries, and I need to start keeping a note pad in my purse to jot things down when I have moments of inspiration for blog posts or purse & craft ideas.

I hope you're having a great weekend. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage Watches Bracelet

I teased about a tutorial for a cool bracelet I made last weekend. I had some computer problems last week, so that set me back a few days. All's well now, and I'm so happy because I've been itching to show this off! I'll just start with a picture of the lovely finished product.

Isn't she pretty? I love how it turned out! Here's how I made her.


I knew I wanted a jump ring with beads between each watch, so I sorted through my beads and picked some from my stash that had lots of sparkle and a dressy feel.

I chose some clear, red, and brown Swarovski crystal beads that I had rescued from some vintage broken necklaces and set each one onto a head pin.

You know how to do that, right? Insert the pin, cut it off, bend it about 90%, then curl the end using round nose pliers. When you're done with that step you'll have beads that look something like this.

With my beads all pinned and ready, I gathered my watches.

These are some that I've had that no longer work. A couple I acquired through family, a few were bought for small prices at thrift stores, (I'm talking like $1 each). Now, here's a little tip if you decide to use vintage watches in this same manner. See the two watches on the right in this next picture?

The last one wouldn't work for this project. See how the strap attaches to the watch? It has two lugs with a pin between. The pin holds the strap on. Whereas the one on the left, (as well as the other four I'm using for this project) has a single lug coming off the watch frame. One with a pin wouldn't give you the integrity you'd need for this bracelet. I'm afraid the pin would pop out. 
So with my watches gathered I had to remove the bands. I could have just cut them away, but I'm a frugal crafter and figure I can surely find a use for them, so I studied how they were attached and removed them carefully. I won't include that process here, as each one was a little different, you'll just have to study and see how they come off of the watches you've chosen.

With the watchbands removed, I gathered my watches, jump rings, and pinned beads, for assembly.

I joined the watches with a jump ring and added three pinned beads to each side.

Continue this process until you have all of your watches joined together. My wrist measures 6.5inches, so depending on your wrist size and the size of the watches you might use more or less than five. That's what I needed for my bracelet.

I tried a couple of different clasps, but settled on a lobster claw with a short chain on the other end. 
Since none of the watches run, as an after thought, I decided to set each one with a time that holds a special meaning to me. One is set at 3:31 for my daughter's March 31st birthday, one at 10:52 for the time she was born. 8:28 for August 28th, my anniversary. 1:11 for Mr. ShowMe's January 11th birthday.  No one knows the meaning of those times but me, and that's ok. When I look at it on my wrist and see the various times, I know what they mean, and it gives me another reason to love it!

Thanks for stopping by. If you decide to make something similiar, I'd love to hear about it! 


I'm linking up with Angie's party over at Knick of Time and all the other fun places listed on my Link Parties page.




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