View Master!

 (it looks exactly like this one, box and all. I couldn't get as good of a photo so used an image from the nets)

 One of the gifts I got for my birthday was a vintage View Master!  It came in it's original box and all!

Here are a few fun View Master images I found while looking around:

A view master-ed image of a dinosaur!  To continue the birthday dinosaur theme!

 Here is an image of Disney View Master artist, Joe Liptak, working on a scene to be shot for a Peter Pan reel.

View Monster!  Wacky Pack sticker

And Va Va Va Voom!  View Master for the Adults!

Snozzberry Birthday Cake!

 Here is my "Snozzberry" flavored pink dinosaur birthday cake.  Snozzberry tastes alot like strawberry, in case you were wondering.  Every year for my birthday dinosaurs get involved in some way, whether in plastic form or large goofy golf obstacle form. I found this 1987 Wilton Partysaurus cake pan for a couple of bucks at the thrift in a moment of fate last week.

Single serving with a little dinosaur on top!

Oh!  In case you were concerned, that is a plastic cockroach on the cake.  

He makes an appearance on all our birthday cakes. We play "La Cucaracha" on the record player and make the lyrics to "Happy Birthday" fit in while the birthday person wears a huge mariachi hat and blows out the candles!

Yadhtrib Aknow!

 No, it's not Japanese, it's "Wonka Birthday" spelled backwards! 

This past weekend it just so happened that on the evening of my birthday our town's gorgeous 1925 historic Saeger Theatre was showing one of my all time favorite films on the big screen....

"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"!

yay!!

And since we can't just go to a movie, especially one of this importance, without dressing up or doing something to get in the spirit we came up with a few last minute ideas.  

First,  I made envelopes to hold our "golden tickets" in that looked like life sized Wonka Bars.  On the back of the golden tickets were our real tickets double-side taped down.

Secondly,  we needed some top hats! We have a set of top hats we wear on New Year's Eve every year (hence the silver sparkly tinsel bands). So I simply added a printout of another smaller Wonka Bar to wonka them up a bit.

 Lastly, I am sorry to say I do not have a purple velvet coat and floweredy vest like Mr. Wonka... but I do have a black velvet jacket and grey and white polka dotted knee socks!

I love Gene Wilder so much in this role!  It is so cute how his wild hair flips around.  And I love soooo many of his signature lines he uses!

"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men."
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of the dreams."
"So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that.  Reverse it."
"I'm sorry, but all questions must be submitted in writing."

I also love all the Veruca Salt scenes and her song! I know she is a brat but it is so funny!

This is my favorite part when she goes all bipolar and is a raging lunatic one moment shaking her head but then slowly comprises herself back to a smiling evil child!

Snozzberries?  Who ever heard of a snozzberry?

Pyrex Ware in COLOR!

"Imagine these beautiful dishes on your table...and think of the joy they are to own!"

2.95! Not for the catalog...not some introductory offer for just one dish to get you reeled in.  It's for the entire set, no strings!  And only 29 cents for additional individual dishes!

I'll take five of each in every color you have!

End of Summer Bowling Bonanza

We are trying to squeeze some fun into the busy last week before school starts.  At just 99 cents a game, we made our way to Felton Lanes for some bowling fun.

Felton Lanes is locally owned and has been around since 1960 with little neat vintage characteristics everywhere.

Felton is know for "Cosmic Bowling".  On certain nights the lights are all black lights with the balls and pins glowing neon! For 99 cents though, the regular lights were what we got.

One of the best part of bowling. The cool shoes!

A whole rack of green balls.

Locker door.  I like the Brunswick "B" and crown logo.

The Alley Galley

I thought the wire rack drink holder was neat looking. 

We are thinking of making Felton a regular Wed night thing.  PB is going to design us some shirts and a clever team name.... Wait.  School starts next week... Maybe next summer.

Massive Super Cool Awesome Fisher Price Score

Once weekly, during the summer break,  PB and I have been having a thrift store day together, Thrift Store Thursday we call it.  Before heading out on our adventure, we each crack open a fortune cookie.  We add "at the thrift store" at the end.  Last week we got :

"You are heading in the right direction....at the thrift store"  and

 "Good things are coming to you in due course of time.....at the thrift store".

We had no idea how true these fortunes would be.  PB likes to push shopping carts (and I hate them! ) which was another thing in our favor before we knew it.  As we started looking in the toy area my eye was attracted to something boxy, bright, and cute.  The Fisher Price Play Family Camper...right there and only $2.49.  But the boat was missing.  PB and I started frantically looking around for it and low and behold another Fisher Price Play Family Camper with the boat was on another shelf, with accessories .  We put both in the buggy. 

As we made our way through the toy area, I then found the Fisher Price School Days Desk ($1.99)....

Then the School House with accessories ($2.99).....

(several desks and chairs are inside, along with the magnetic alphabet letters)

 Then the Parking Ramp Service Center ($2.99)....

My brother and I had this when we were little and loved playing with it!

Fill'r up!

We also found this plastic picnic basket.  It is not by Fisher Price but I had one just like it when I was little.
($1.49)

At this point, I asked PB to pinch me so I could know if I was dreaming all of this!  We made our way to the furniture area to have a sitsy and to look through everything we had found.  While I could have kept both of the campers I know that is not good thrift store karma.  I am sure I could have sold it on ebay, but I wanted to leave it for someone else to discover and be happy about (even with the boat missing).  As we made our way back to the toy area to put the camper back, the Fisher Price fairy had returned leaving...

 the Family Farm with accessories

($4.99)

A big bag of little people and furniture

($1.99)

Here is some of the furniture in a Fisher Price house I picked up from a thrift store several years ago.  It didn't come with any items at that time. When PB was little he used it for his cars to have sleep overs together in. Check out the little sewing machine on the bottom right !!!

Tip Top Turtle pull toy ($1.49)

Goldilocks and the 3 Bears Playhouse ($.99)
We found the bear family in with the bag of little peoples.
I had never seen this toy before.  On the other side of the roof is corresponding open shapes of the bears for them to be pushed through.  Inside the house is a little table with lithos of porridge for each. 

On the back of the house is a face similar to the Chatter Phone with eyes that move up and down as it is pulled across the floor.

I was looking at the roof of the house and noticed a little illustration of a blonde girl with a blue dress and white ruffled collar.  Just looked it up on the nets and yes! A Goldilocks was included:

Scroll back up and look to the right of the image of all the little peoples! There she is, with her back to us!  I thought she seemed different from every one else when I looked through the bag. 

And lastly, I found the

Jalopy ($.99)

I also got a huge bag of plastic magnetic letters and numbers for $.99.

This is a day that will go down in history! Apparently the thrift store person who would normally price each of these items at $40.00 bucks was out sick.  We kinda hung around for a bit in hopes more treasures might come out...(that furniture must have had a house to be placed in!) but nothing else. At one point I had to use the restroom, I asked PB to guard the buggy.  He grabbed a Nerf gun from the toy section and held his ground while I was away.  It was very funny!
Several of these toys were ones I had been wanting for a long time and I doubled my collection in one trip. Thrift store karma! Do not doubt it's power!

Pork Brains With Milk Gravy!

 I told you all that it existed...but I felt there may have been some doubts out there. 

 PB and I go on several field trips during the summer.  Sometimes to art or history museums and then sometimes to grocery stores.  Fun, interest and education can be had anywhere. Barnes Grocery Store is where we visited today.  It is a bit on the creepy side but also kinda neat too.  It's a hard balance.  Barnes has been around since I would guess the 70's.  It hasn't been remodeled or cleaned much since then either. It is very "small town" but in a bit of a shady-sh location.  I shop there when I need only a few items and am looking for an adventure at the same time.  The kinds of foods available at Barnes is the biggest part of the adventure, very neat labels as well.

 I love the Prairie Belt Smoked Sausage boy!  The design of the can is cute and worthy of becoming a kitchen wallpaper.  He lives next to jars of pickled pigs feet.

 Yikes.  I took all of these pics with my phone and I don't have a steady hand.  But I had to include this blurry image of family sized cans of beef tripe with milk....9.99 each.

 I thought these bags of Jay's O-Ke-Doke popcorn were cute on several levels. Cute name, cute graphics and they look neat hanging in clusters on an old style metal clipped rack tower.

The Brim's piggy is so darling he could give Piggly Wiggly some decent competition in a cuteness contest.

 Oh! Boy Syrup.  Cute label but apparently not a hot seller, as you can see the dust on the jars.  Maybe it stems from confusion with the name of the product.  It's not "Oh Boy! Syrup".  It's "Oh!  Boy Syrup".  Could it be made just for boys or out of boys? Oh! Boy?

 We did find a few items to purchase while on this adventure.  We bought these Uncle Al's Planks cookies for only 1.29 for 3! There are two planks in each package. Score! I remember getting these as a kid from small town convenience/gas stores.

And now for the best part of the adventure!!!! A visit to The Chicken Machine!!! Put in a mere 25 cents and you will receive a musical show ( the chicken clucks and turns) and a lucky egg with a prize inside!

PB was super happy with getting a mini compass in his egg.  He now thinks the chicken has magical powers of knowing what the recipient's interest are and gives them their prize accordingly.

This may have been fueled by our reason to go to Barnes today in the first place.  We had to buy Redi Whip for our homemade butterbeers we were going to enjoy during our Harry Potter marathon for the evening.

So what about fun, interest and education at Barnes?
Fun = Magical Chicken Egg.
Interest = Being able to view multitudes of canned meat products at one location.
Education= PB learned there is something called "Fla-vor-aid" and it is similar to Kool-Aid.  And that beef tripe is expensive!

summer blahs

This summer has gone by way too quickly and I am not thrilled in the least over that fact. 

Just sayin'...