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.

Organizing Ribbons & Fabric

I've already posted about how I organized my beads, and my sewing patterns. Today I tackled my ribbons and fabric. 

Here are my "after" pictures. I recently read a post by Tiffany at Making the World Cuter, and she said you should start with the best pictures on a blog post. And since I'm still learning, I'll take free advice, especially from seasoned bloggers.


So let's start back at the beginning. This is what my ribbon mess stash used to look like.

Remember that roll of wallpaper that I scored from my mother-in-law's basement? I've already used it to make beads, sewing pattern envelopes, and covered a box to store my patterns in. We can now add ribbon organization to the many uses of the roll of paper. I started out with Oatmeal containers. 

 I had one scrap left from one of the other projects that was large enough for one of the small containers.

I marked out what I needed and cut the paper for covering with a glue stick. (I had previously figured out that school glue didn't stick to this textured wallpaper.)

I knew I wanted a slot in the oats container so I measured and marked it out down one side.

I don't have an X-acto knife. I'm really clumsy and think it would only be a matter of time before I lopped off something unintentional... not to mention painful and messy, so I opted for a serrated steak knife. To aid in cutting the slot I used my trusty sewing awl, (still haven't found a use for it in sewing!), to punch some holes along the cutting lines to serve as a sort of perforation. If you're brave enough to use an X-acto knife you could probably skip this step. 

 With the opening cut down the side of the container, it was time to get the paper ready for gluing. I made two cuts so the part that would have been over the slot would fold to the inside.

 Changing the subject.. have you made pattern weights? Mine are three washers glued together with E-6000 glue. They are the best thing ever!!! I use mine all the time!


So here's the first one all glued down and clamped till the glue takes hold.

 I realized I needed a longer piece for the inside. That first one gave me a little trouble, so on the next ones I made the cuts more generous.

I have a much longer tab here than I had on the last one. I also curled those center tabs the opposite direction from the way they wanted to go, so once inside they would follow the interior curve of the container.

 Here's one all glued, set, and filled with ribbon spools.

 Here's the final product. I can see all of my ribbons at a glance without digging through that messy pile. Much Better!

On to the fabric!

 My fabric stash was getting out of control, so Mr. ShowMe brought a couple of shelving racks up out of the basement for me. The ends of the racks were open so I wove some twine back and forth across the ends and tied it off so the fabric wouldn't fall out.
We drink a LOT of Diet Coke, so I cut apart 12 can cartons to make bolts to wrap the folded fabric around. I cut tall ones (14") for the back of the shelf and shorter ones (8") for the short stacks in front.

I used that system for the top two shelves. The very top of the rack holds shallow tubs for smaller pieces of fabric, fat quarters and the like.

The bottom shelf has some larger pieces that didn't lend themselves to the bolt system, like vintage drapery panels. 

I have one shelf finished. I'm still working on the other. Once I get them both done I'll probably do some color groupings, but for now, I'm just trying to get everything bolted and in place on the shelves.

What organization challenges have you conquered with your craft supplies? I'd love to hear about it!


Thanks for stopping by :)

More Uses for Wallpaper

Remember that wallpaper roll that my mother-in-law gave me when she cleaned out her basement?

I've posted about the paper beads I made. But that was using only strips of 1" x 4" pieces of the paper. A girl only needs so many beads, and that paper is too pretty to just leave in roll, so here's a couple more projects I've done with it.

I print sewing patterns that are offered online and also design my own purses, so I was accumulating quite a pile of home made or home printed pattern pieces.

I kept them organized by folding and clipping them together but it was a bit unsightly. I had started pondering the cost of a box of manila envelopes, when the obvious occurred to me.. why not make envelopes?


So I deconstructed a manila envelope I had using my trusty sewing awl, (I know a letter opener would have probably worked better, but that was handy and to be honest, I've never had any sewing project that required an awl yet, so at least I finally found a use for it).

It was a bit bigger than the size of a sewing pattern envelope, so using one, I marked off the reduced size that I wanted.

Then made the adjustment for the reduction.

Now I had my template ready for tracing.

I traced it onto the wallpaper.

And cut it out.

Is all wallpaper this curly? Or is this just extra curly because its been in Mom's basement in shrink wrap for the last decade?


It was obvious where to fold it and where to glue it, and if you try this yourself I'll give you a tip. I glued the first few together with Elmer's glue, but I guess because of the finish and texture of the front of the paper, it didn't stick. Even drying overnight, I could just lift it right off. So I stopped at the office supply store and bought a glue stick. That worked! 

Because a stack of identical envelopes wouldn't be very user friendly, my initial plans were to glue printed pictures of the finished project depicting the pattern inside, but once they were done, they were so pretty, I decided not to deface them with something so permanent.

So I paper clipped the printed pictures instead.


And because the envelopes turned out so pretty, I decided to cover the shoe box that I keep my patterns in as well.

I guess I can add Elegant Envelopes and Elegant Storage Boxes with the Elegant Paper Beads to my paper project portfolio! 


Have you found uses for wallpaper other than papering a wall? I'd love to hear about your projects if you have.


On a separate note, I've added a Linky Followers gadget over in the right margin of my blog. I was just getting my Google Friends Connect numbers up there, (I think I had just hit the 30 mark), when it went away, so now I'm starting over again. UGH! Please don't hesitate to follow via the new gadget if you're so inclined, I love it that you were here and would love to have you back again. :)


Hope you're having a wonderful weekend. Thanks for stopping by!!