1953: Home Baking Made Easy (from Spry)

1953 Sightseeing with the Swayzes through Vacationland America

Today I went to a muscle car cruise, where owners of vintage street machines bring them out to show them, so in honor of those cars I'm featuring a vintage travel guide of mine.

Published in 1953 by Fram, this great bit of auto ephemera focuses on New Orleans, and is "hosted" by newscaster John Cameron Swayze - I  believe this was before he was spokesperson for Timex (It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.)

The brochure takes the reader through a nine day travel itinerary of the Swayzes through the New Orleans area, with the brochure liberally sprinkled with Fram promotions.

What a great bit of vintage Vacationland memorabilia.

By the way, if you want to see some of those muscle cars, check out my other blog, Daddy's Tiny Cars, where I kick out a collage of some great cars, some of which were from the time of this brochure.

An explanation of Boudreaux, Butt Paste, and Tiny Cars

For a short time viewers who get this blog delivered via feed or email might have seen a strange blog post about Boudreaux and a Matchbox car, only to disappear.

You did not imagine it. Allow me to explain.

In addition to Nickadizzy, I also write daddystinycars.com where I post a picture of a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car each week and loosely connect it to a story about my family or life.

Today I inadvertently posted the Tiny Cars blog on the Nickadizzy vintage site but realized my error and switched it to its real home.

Sorry for any confusion, but since I'm here I invite you, if interested, to follow the adventures of me, Racer A, Racer Z, and Baby G over at daddystinycars.com!

Thanks!

- Dale aka Nickadizzy

Ice Capades of 1956 program

I recent found  this original 1956 Ice Capades program at a garage sale.

The program featured an ice show of Peter Pan featuring skater Donna Atwood, as well as top a skating act Bobby Specht and a number of others.

This bit of 1950's ephemera was too good to not share ~

Scintilla's Satin Shop catalog, 1970-71

Mod, mod, mod 70's satin -- from Scintilla's 1970-71 catalog.

1914 The People's Home Library

Christina, a friend of mine, lent me this great old reference book. Copyrighted 1910 and published in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914 by the R.C. Barnum Company, The People's Home Library is a giant of a book -- three books, actually, combined under one binding for something like a combined 1,032 pages and weighing four pounds five ounces!

The book is a compendium of information. Book I is home medical advice, including advice on marriage, recipes for patent medicines such as Shiloh's Consumption Cure and Oil of Gladness (which requires 1 fluid dram of Tincture of Opium), and advice on baby colic.

I'm not sure how sound all of the medical advice remains -- for a nose bleed it suggests shoving grated dried beef up your nose, but it's fascinating to browse through.

Moving right out of home remedies for hives, we get Book II, with recipes for corn bread and custard, and instructions for setting the table.

The logical next step would be: veterinary diagrams and instructions for livestock, of course. Actually, it makes sense, as this was meant as a how-to book for rural inhabitants to handle almost any situation.

With some things incredibly outdated and other topics still relatively unchanged, this is a browsing book, and at more than 1,000 pages, that's a lot of browsing.

1954: Coats & Clark's Afghans and matching pillows

The above picture is actually the back cover of the 1954 Coats & Clark's Afghans and matching pillows, which gave a better shot of the mid century cane furniture used as staging for the afghan pattern (which, believe it or not, is called Pineapple.)

While the afghan designs in this how-to pattern book are fun, I've posted the color plates from the booklet here for the incidental mid century furnishings, graphics and models featured in the pages. I'll begin with the two-page below from the middle of the book, which I split into two photos.

   

Smoking a pipe, reading a book, and lounging in your smoking jacket under the Checkmate afghan pattern. That's the life.

Here are some more pics, including the below Lollipop pattern,

Candy Cane pattern

Maltese Cross pattern (check out the couch and lamp)

Patchwork pattern

Jacob's Ladder pattern, with the coolest mid century modern divan/reclining bed, 

and a pattern called Lagoon, with that ever popular aqua and pink mid century color combo seen in the pottery on the table.

If you want to see the front cover and a few more patterns, additional pictures are on my shop, where the original book, along with some other 1950s afghan designs, is for sale.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/109577528/1954-coats-clarks-afghans-and-matching.

I love the above table lamp, and it looks even better in blue ink mid century graphics.