30 December 1956 “Christmas Gifts”

I know I have been on a sort of sabbatical from posting lately. I think the rush and excitement of Christmas left me not bothering with my computer to much, so I am rather late in sharing some Christmas gifts with you.
Here is Christmas morning. We forgot to snap a shot until we had already begun unwrapping. You can see Sophie, our little Italian Greyhound, has already been in her stocking and is happily chewing away on a treat from Santa. I chose, via the suggestions of my vintage magazines, to forgo simple green and red for wrapping. I chose Green and pink as a main theme and punctuated it with blues and browns.
Here is a little nosegay of ribbon flowers I made using the instructions I shared with you. This was for our Christmas swap this year at our family Christmas eve party. I made the vintage tag from an old image and used Hubby’s typewriter to type names on tags.
  Here I created a Christmas beach scene. It doesn’t look very appealing in this photo, but it was rather darling. I used glitter and glue to simulate sand and waves and made my own little clam shack. Here is a close up of the little house. What I did was scan some images I have from a book that reproduces early New England buildings that you cut out and create. They are HO scale if you want to use them in model railroads. What I did was scan it and then change the colors to light and bright colors like you find in these Mica Christmas village houses of the 1950’s. You can see the fun pastel shades and they are always covered in a clear form of glitter. So that is what I did. Next year, I may make my own village. If I do, I will share the plans with you. If you want to recreate this one, here is the full scale version I colored and is ready for printing. Just click on it and save and print. It actually has a little front and rear porch roof and railings and a little entranceway I did not add, but you could. I added glitter before I cut it out and glued it together. Just use Elmer's glue or homemade paste and an exacto knife. It is fairly easy to see how it goes together and put glue where you see the little dots. It all affixed to the lower right image with the yellow wood. Have fun if you make one! Change the colors up if you want. It is no longer HO scale, though, as I made it smaller for my package.
I thought I would share some of my lovely gifts with all of you. Now, much as a lady in 1956 would have done, all my gifts are not from 1956. I think, unless one was super up to date and modern, antiques and old things were just as appreciated in 1956 as today. In fact I have many books on collecting antiques printed in the 1950’s.
Rather I was in 1956 or today, I have always loved the 19th and earlier centuries. Here we see a lovely Paris Fashion plate from 1870’s (one of my favorite times for fashion) framed. It is old as is the frame. An actual antique little boy doll. A collection of Sir Walter Scott first printings and a little book by a 19th century Baroness. Hubby knows I am trying to brush up my French so I found these lovely French Novels and books in French. My French was always schoolroom French so my reading was much better than my speaking.
I was so excited to get this cookie press. I have been coveting one for ages. Now I can make proper Spritz cookies as well as other things. They are also great for making savories for cocktail parties or fun tea sandwich spreads.
Here is a good Spritz Cookie Recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Sift together the flour and salt; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Stir in the egg yolks, almond extract and vanilla extract. Gradually blend in the sifted ingredients. Fill a cookie press with dough and shoot cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. If you like, decorate with sugar or sprinkles at this time.
3. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes in the preheated oven.

I was surprised to see atop some of my gifts from my Hubby, these darling little vintage pins. They were used in place of bows (he always has been a great wrapper of gifts) Here they are close up. I love wearing pins. They are such a fun Vintage accesory and are usually affordable. You can use it to pin a scar around your neck, decorate a collar or dress, even attach to your handbag to add a little swirl of style.I also received these wonderful vintage earrings in my stocking. They are made from actual shells and rimmed in gold. Aren’t they wonderful. These will look great at Summer parties or boating. As you may know I have a set of vintage champagne goblets that are antique with a platinum ring. Hubby found, at our local church antique shop, a complete set of wine and dessert glasses that match! I was thrilled to say the least.
And you all may know as well that for my Everyday dishes, I collect and use the Temporama form the 1950’s. I have been lusting after the coffee urn for the past two years here in the 1950’s but they are hard to come by and when they appear on eBay are always overpriced. I was happy to see that Gussie and Hubby went in on one for me for Christmas, I was excited! And Gussie got me a gravy boat AND the matching plate. I once had the boat, but broke it in our move, but never had the plate. The plate is important for drips. I also received a new butter dish that goes with my salt and pepper and sugar.
I also collect antique bird cages. I have always been fascinated by old ways of keeping pets, and vintage bird cages are wonderful to just display or keep plants in or Victorian stuffed taxidermy birds. Or, in some cases, even a real bird, as this one may be large enough for a canary.
I felt my appreciation of older things validated as being “very 1950’s” when after opening my vintage bird cage, I was thumbing through my 1956 December McCall’s I got for Christmas to find this page. A very similar bamboo bird cage is shown here in a display for home. I loved that is used orange as well, as I like to use orange in my home because of all the warm wood tones.
Well, I have had a wonderful Christmas and I hope all of you have done as well. I am getting excited and a bit nervous for the coming year. I still have not officially ‘launched’ my new 1957 project as yet. We shall see, we shall see…
Happy Homemaking all and Happy Coming New Year!

21 December 1956 “Wrapping Gifts: Another Homemaker’s Art”

I think the presentation of gifts once had as much import as what the package contained. Be it the higher cost of things, the almost non-existent use of credit or simply the time allowed the homemaker, gift wrapping was an art.
This shows another aspect of the homemaker that is something I have come to hold dear: time. Many today might say, ‘Well, the little dear, she just had all the time in the world. And nothing to challenge her mind, so no wonder she spent so much time on making gift decoration”. Yet, consider giving less, taking more time in the wrapping and having the time at home to enjoy that process. Even if one were a working woman, wouldn’t you rather be at home, humming along happily to some Bing Crosby while snipping bows and fastening toilet paper rolls into little soldiers than out rushing through the mall, swiping that card over and over? I know I would.
Here we see a woman helping a wounded soldier with his wrapping.(Image from HERE) It is of interest to note that though scotch/cello tape was available, many suggestions show that glue as well as string were also used to hold paper on packages. In some cases, we are told in lieu of paper (think of during the war when there was little paper and little to give, one had to decorate as best they could and make the package as nice as the gift)to decorate the plain box with what was on hand. Here we see plastic spoons on plain boxes and even cutting out images from other paper to make a theatre mask.
The idea that the package can be as fun or as important as the gift is shown wonderfully here.This Penguin would do lovely over a bottle of wine or even, for the cook, some fine quality first press olive oil. I know I am always appreciative of fine cooking supplies and you might get a chance at a fine meal in return for your thoughtfulness to the chef.
This darling and kookie little guy is going to show up under our tree this year. How adorable and what a great way to make use of paper toweling rolls, toilet roll tubes or simply making a tube with scrap paper. We always save mis-printed or mistake computer paper. Sometimes that printer doesn’t want to behave or there it gets jammed, don’t throw that out. Not only can you cut it and staple it to make a fine grocery list notebook, it can go with the crafts for just such times as this, wrapping fun!
These three examples are fun ways to decorate that package. The last is ingenious and very green. They have taken a wishbone from a chicken or turkey (why throw it out!) and decorated it with sequins. Then, on Christmas day, the recipient and a partner can make a wish, ingenious.
I also love this idea where one takes one item and arranges it to look like another.Here it is dishtowels/tea towels arranged to look like baby clothes. Wouldn’t this be a lovely idea for a baby shower? You could fold cloth diapers to resemble this little outfit. Or men’s handkerchiefs could be used and see Father’s eyes when he looks to mother with that questioning look “Mother? Is the stork coming?”
These remaining images show some fun ways to make bows. What is interesting is the color range of Christmas paper, it isn’t all red and green. I have decided to do some pink and green this year, as I rather like it together and it makes me think of Spring. I found some plain green paper and pink ribbon.
  Following these images are the ‘How-to’ for these bows.Here are the instructions. All images are clickable to become larger.
   
I adore these roses and here are the step by step guides. I might have to make a pretty pink nose gay atop my green packages.       I like this idea as well, because the little seed packages atop a gardener’s gift (a book or garden gloves or little metal row markers) would be much appreciated. Especially since I will be starting seeds in January, it makes a Gardner’s heart beat quickly to get thinking about getting back to that soil.
So, I hope these ideas are not too late (many may have all their wrapping done) but they certainly could be added to gifts already wrapped. Enjoy and Happy Homemaking.

27 November 1956 “Christmas is Coming”

I am sorry I didn’t make a post yesterday. We had such a lovely Thanksgiving and so much fun and food. However, yesterday I had a bit of a 24 hour cold. I am feeling a bit better today and so this shall be a short post as well. I hope all enjoyed their holiday.
Seeing as yesterday was ‘Black Friday’ here in the USA (Crazy shopping day) I thought I’d share a couple Christmas ads. This first one is fun because it shows the style and graphics of what one would see in Christmas wrapping paper available from Hallmark in 1956. Fun bright colors and geometric shapes.
For the young one on the list this year, these View Master toys were probably scrawled in childish hand-writing to Santa. 
For the lady of the house, these higher end products would be a welcome surprise under the tree. $20 dollars in today's money would be $140.00 dollars. I am sure one could find an electric blanket very cheap today, but we must remember this probably lasted forever (in fact they are probably still around and working today) and were most likely manufactured in our country. Thus providing jobs and money for the holidays. I actually have that pink radio clock as it was my Mother in Laws and she let me have it. It was just stored away in the attic. She remembered having it as a teen in her room.
I hope all are avoiding the busy early Christmas shopping rush and getting into the Holiday spirit. I think we need, this coming month, to try and foster as much Christmas spirit as we can without too much emphasis on the consumer aspect. Maybe talk about and share homemade gift ideas. Home made ornaments and cookies and treats. Share stories and tales to tell around the fire in lieu of being to rushed about and stressed from spending money we haven’t got only to worry over the bills come January. Who is in with me to try and make this a less ‘Buying’ Christmas and a more Celebrating Christmas? And, when buying, local made or good reliable vintage!
Happy Homemaking.