Pumpkin Pizzazz

Last year I had wanted to try my hand at making some overly embellished JOL pails but ran out of time, so here they are this season.

I used a bunch of stuff that I had in my Halloween coffers such as vintage cupcake bits, faux candies, and left over printed images from a Halloween garland I made back in 2012.

Here are some close-ups:

 

Did you know you can't buy Mary Janes anymore in the real world (at least not in my parts)?  I can only find them available online, in industrial sized vats and for insane amounts of money.  They used to be available at cheapo places like Family Dollar General for a buck.  I'm just glad I bought so many last year and saved the wrappers.

Witchy Poo is my co-pilot

Check out my Halloween side kick for my car!

She started out as a fairly drab witch ghoul I picked up from Dollar General last year for 6 bucks (see way below for before photo).  I thought she had such a great face!  Very vintage reproduction looking!

I decided to fix her up as a witch version of me!

I gave her one of my grey-silver wigs bedecked with polka dotted bows and dressed her in the wonky Batty dress  I made back in 2018.  I actually was considering donating the dress or cutting it up to make something else.

Here I am in the dress in 2018:

And here she was before I fixed her up:

I can see dressing her up in different outfits, wigs, and/or hats each year.... 

 

Mystifying Oracles of Butter Rings... Contained!

In the last post I showed the only vintage Halloween items I came across this season.  Today I am sharing one of the new Halloween items I picked up this year.  It's the perfect receptacle for 

 Mystifying Oracles of Butter Rings !

I found this glass cookie jar at Target for 5 bucks!

 The mystifying Oracles of Butter Rings are actually just cheapo cookies from 1.25 tree with 'Yes', 'No', or 'Maybe' imprinted on them.  The cookies are available all year but are so perfect for Halloween fortune telling!

Vintage Halloween Diecuts

To kick off this Halloween 2023 season I present the only vintage Halloween items I acquired over the past year, which are these unmarked (but obviously Luhrs/Beistle) die-cuts from an estate sale for 25¢ each.

They are about 6 inches tall and the color is a bit faded.

  

I scanned them (and tried my best to increase the color) for your crafting pleasure:

 

Friday, October 6, 1950

Our house turns 73 years old this year and now we have a hint about the time frame it was move-in ready!

Last summer we had extensive wood rot repairs done on the exterior siding of our home.  Several times during the process I would hear the hammers stop and get a knock on the door.  "I've got some bad news." the foreman would say.  The news always had to do with hidden water damage and usually around windows.

Here is an image (below) of the repairs in progress under the bathroom window.  The mold and rot is seen down the vertical 2x4s on the outer edges.  One afternoon at the end of a work day I was talking with the foreman about how we had discovered the house has zero insulation in the walls.  He then says "Well, there was some "insulation" in the bathroom wall that the original builder had used to place the toilet paper dispenser." 

He was talking about newspaper.  He said "Yeah, It's from 1950.  I put it in the back of my truck with the rest of the debris.  What?  You want it?!"

Um, yeah!

Here is the back side of the toilet paper dispenser.  I like that a bit of the newspaper is still attached and it's a graphic of lumber!

And for the complete look, here is the business side of the dispenser (bathroom tour and decor here):

 

So it turned out to be a wad of newspapers with dates of Friday Oct 6, 1950 and Wednesday Oct 11, 1950 (which fall on the same days of the week this year).  Since fixtures such as this are some of the last finishing touches it only makes sense that the house was ready to be occupied by the end of October....making our home a Halloween baby!

I decided to do a little 73 year anniversary/birthday shindig based after an ad I came across in the garbled wall paper which boasted Domino Sugar:

I got us some sugar doughnuts as suggested by the Domino Sugar Fairy and served them on our vintage 1950 calendar plate:

Finding this newspaper in the wall was like discovering some ancient lost artifact to me.  So exciting!  We always wonder about the previous owners and what the house was decorated like over the decades.  Before we bought it, past owners had done a bunch of remodeling: opening up rooms, removing walls, changing the flow of traffic, sheet-rocking the laundry room which I think used to be a garage, the space we use as a dining room was once a porch, the back foyer that leads to the deck I believe was once the dining room with just a window.  There's been alot of changes so finding a little' bit of original' was awesome.

Happy 73 years to our little grey cottage! 

{P.S. We also have a ceramic soap holder on the other wall that just might have another wad of 1950s newspaper hidden away!}  

August Coconut Cut-up Cake

Here is the coconut cut-up cake for the month of August..."Sailin' Down the Bay".

The original sailboat cake (seen below) reminded me of the artwork hanging in the livingroom of the Simpson's so I kinda styled it as it was in a frame!

As seen below:

And here is the original:

I have nearly finished making all the calendar of Baker's Cut-Up Cakes!

I skipped May and June because they sucked.  I just have September left...but I'm not counting my cut-up cakes until they are coconutted!

Here is the list thus far:

January Mr. Snowman Cake

February Ever-Lovin' Heart Cake

March Coco The Nutty Clown Cake

April Quick-A-Bunny Cake

July American Eaglet Coconut Cake

October Hallo Witch Cake

November Gobble-Gobble Gobbler Cake

December Dear Santa Cake

Citrus Shelf

 

Here is our current, most precious, Florida citrus themed display case! 

Summer Nightmares

 {From Household Magazine August 1949}

I came across this Summer ad with Halloween vibes in one of my old magazines recently.  It makes me think about how the only great thing about the summer is all the early releases of Halloween stuff in the stores.  It's all I have to get me through these horrid. hot, humid months...

National Underwear Day

Today is the day to celebrate your underwear!  Whether you like tighty whities, butt floss, or granny panties, appreciate what you have!

The clock seen above used to hang over my favorite table at Brew Ha Ha (which has since closed).  It was my favorite table because of the clock actually.

Here are a few fun advertisements featuring uncommonly cute undies: 

Careful not to wear the Charles undies on Joe's night!

Keep your flings straight ladies!

Interesting that the Saturday undies are black.  Must be for going wild out on the town...or a friendly reminder that you're on your last pair of under-britches.

Now who in the "young set" is gonna buy Eddie Fisher and Perry Como briefs when they could have Elvis?

I bet many a young bride got these as a gag gift back in the day!

And lastly here is a his and hers (kinda) matching set:

So cute!

Another way to celebrate today is with a pair of giant underpants!

For an instructional video see below!

Enjoy your skivvies today everyone!

Heading out to get some lemons...

"The playhouse will always be here for everyone to play in, forever and ever and ever.  And that you have my WORD!"

Words I am lacking with this.

Here are just a few Pee-wee/Paul Reubens posts from the MHiCTY archives that represent the joy/creativity/quirkiness he brought me:

Large Marge Sent Me

Did you hear?

Partypalooza

I Pity The Fool

 

Spongeorama!

 

Going to Spongeorama in Tarpon Springs, FL has been on my gotta-do list for ages. It's a classic Florida roadside attraction that has been in operation since 1968.  I also love the name of the place which I like to call Sponge-E-O-Rama.

Mr. Husband Sir and I found ourselves in the Tampa area on a bit of last minute business and happened to realize that we were just a whiff and a whisker away from SPONGEORAMA!

We made our way over through the deluge to the small quaint building.  I then covered my bases by pronouncing I think we are about to be underwhelmed.

We encountered lots and lots of beautiful sea sponges, but certainly not at discount prices.

I mean, I would think since the middle man has been eliminated and these sponges were plucked out of the sea just yards from the building they would have passed the saving on to us.  The above sponges started at 15 bucks each.  I guess they would be like 100 bucks in the commercial market or Walmart.

There are several shelves lining the walls displaying more sponges...dusty sponges.

Samples of different types of sponges to experience in their wet form.

Mr. Husband Sir got to wear the sponge hat.

I got a quick blurry photo in the iconic diver's mask between down pours.

The day we went the free movie on the history of sponge diving was closed.  So we were in and out of the place in about 5 minutes.  It's very small in there and other than the overpriced sponges the other stuff for sale isn't Spongeorama themed....I mean, goat soap?

In a round about way I do already have a souvenir from there.  Last summer when I was decorating/painting the bathroom I wanted to do a sea sponge paint technique on the walls.  It took me a bit to locate a sea sponge in town big enough but I found one at Ace Hardware.  I was thinking how neat it would be if the sponge was from Spongeorama and then I saw on the label it was from Tarpon Springs!  And it was only about 5 bucks.  Ace Hardware must have a connection in the underground black market sea sponge racket.

Spongeorama is located in a little Greek area with several other shops, restaurants, and interesting sites on the docks.  Because of the torrential rain and our short window of time to visit we missed all of that stuff but if we find ourselves down that way again we'll try again to see the Spongeorama movie and sample some baklava.

For now we are just enjoying the bragging rights of saying we've been to SPONGEORAMA!

Plast-i-clay

Here is another fun vintage craft package to inspire some summer crafting.

I have had this package of modeling clay forever.  I can't even remember where it came from.

The back of the package has some bonus fun:

You can cut your modeling time in half by using the supplied heads!  Just jab them down in a big ball of clay and be done with it!  

Fat astronaut, fat dog, fat cowboy, and a typical cat.

 

Pipe Cleaner Art

In with keeping with summer crafting I thought I would share this absolutely adorable vintage box for pipe cleaners.  We picked this up at an antique mall for 10 bucks.  A bit steep for me but I couldn't resist it!

The back of the box:

And not only was the box jam packed with pipe cleaners it did still have the 'complete instructions' inside!

Creative ideas of interest to invalids, shut-ins, convalescents! 

Entertainment for hours!

Most of the ideas that are in here just have me asking "But why?!  Why would you need to make simulated embroidery on an envelope (or maybe that's a bag)?  Why would you think it's a good idea to cover your salt and pepper shakers in rows of pipe cleaners?  Who would want a lyre shaped letter holder?"  Maybe shut-ins have these answers.