Throwback Thursday Shirley Temple Doll from the Fifties

The 1937 movie Heidi starring Shirley Temple inspired this doll. My friend has a vintage doll collection. I photographed her dolls in 2015 and had a jigsaw puzzle created from one of the photos.

Dolls prompt mixed responses.

They creep some people out.

Others collect and display them.

Did you have a special doll?

Shirley Temple Doll in my friend’s glass doored cabinet

In 2010 I photographed granddaughter Maura looking at Aunt Linda’s doll collection

A at

Here’s one of the photos from 2010

Did You Ever Own a Metal Lunchbox?

They were banned in schools in the 1970s after parents complained they were used as weapons and caused serious head injuries. Their history is here from the first Hopalong Cassidy box, to the the last of Rambo Sylvester Stallone model.

I had a red Stewart plaid one in third grade that I remember, complete with a thermos. There were no ice packs included, ever.

The Antique Trader attributes the popularity of metal lunchboxes to television.

Photo taken in 2016

Take a tour of the museum with this YouTube video if you can’t get to Columbus Georgia.

Allen Woodall’s Lunchbox Museum in Columbus, Georgia…..has More than 3,000 lunchboxes and 1,000 thermoses sit on floor-to-ceiling shelves that line the walls. Others hang from the ceiling

Mr Woodall has written an encyclopedia shown below

You can get a pricing guide if you want to start a metal lunchbox collection

Sifting Through a Junk Dish

You might have an actual junk drawer.  I do.  This glass dish accumulation is on a smaller scale. The items need to be evaluated and most of them discarded.

An old eraser, the end of the curtain rod, Canadian coin, a single earring, perfume sample, a button from a blouse long gone, a knotty necklace chain, a pink polished rock, a rubber stamp square, a game token, a tiny key and an ivory brooch. I need the curtain rod piece. The rock can go in the dish of polished rocks I have on my desk in the hall. Maybe I have the other clip-on earring.

Decorative Doorstoppers

Do you have one in your home? Do you have a door that will swing shut if it isn’t held open with a doorstopper? We used to have a cast iron iron.

I saw a window full of vintage door stoppers, mostly painted cast iron. There are animals, people, flowers. Gnomes. Right now I use a concrete (or is it cement?) owl. I bought the owl in a gallery in Mansfield Ohio.

People collect them. Vintage and Antique Doorstoppers or door porters as they are called are written up in Collectors weekly

Holding the living room door that opens onto the front porch
Vintage Doorstoppers in a Nantucket shop window

A Prancing Lamb

A vintage ceramic prancing lamb has been in my friend’s home at least fifty years and in her mother’s home long before that.

I visited my friend Tookie today to share our knitting projects progress and sit on her front porch.

We even talked about our gratitude for sheep and the wool they provide for our use. The. She showed me this vintage ceramic lamb. We checked it out on eBay to get more information on Kay Finch.

There’s a book by Mike Nickel about Kay Finch Ceramics going for $99.99 on eBay.

Kay Finchh “Kay Finch Ceramics were made in Corona Del Mar, California, from 1935 to 1963”

The Prancing Lamb by Kay Finch Ceramics
A close up
A faint mark on the underbelly

You Can’t Look Away

More yard art down the block from Laura’s house. In the afternoon sun. An eclectic mix. A few crops below, so you don’t miss the details. I took just one quick shot cause I wanted to get home before dark.

The Overall view
Details of Barbie car passengers
Yes, there’s a crocheted vehicle
Bowling ball garden
Mr. Magoo among the Dwarves

Matchbooks

Matchbooks used to be found in abundance at restaurants.

“A matchbook is a small paperboard folder enclosing a quantity of matches and having a coarse striking surface on the exterior.” Wikipedia

I found this matchbook when I visited my family.

Do you have a collection of interesting matchbooks?

Souvenir Guest Gallery

Guest Contributions to Today’s Souvenir Gallery.

A follow-on post  from Tuesday’s Post- Souvenir 

Sometimes you purchase the souvenir yourself, and sometimes a souvenir is brought to you as a gift from a traveling friend.

________________________________Souvenirs from Mary

 

____________________________________Souvenirs from Joanne

_______________________________Souvenirs from Vincie-

______________Terry’s souvenir mug from Norway, just over a month in her possession

____________________________Yvette’s Souvenir Refrigerator Magnets

___________________________________Bobbie’s Souvenirs –

Postcard from London from my sister Mary.  I found it on my fridge today.

Souvenir

Souvenir-

  • a thing that is kept as a reminder of a person, place, or event.

There are two pronunciations of souvenir  (soo-vuhneer or soovuh-neer) Which do you say?

Perhaps you avoid collecting souvenirs, adding to the accumulation.  I have a few examples. A salt and pepper shaker from Yellowstone Park purchased in 1963 by me.  A Volksmarch Stein and a ceramic tile from Grafenwoehr Germany where we lived for three years 1983-1986. A dish towel. Christmas ornaments (from my Ohio family’s collection) a refrigerator magnet with Beignets.

In our city there is a shop up on Mt. Washington called love, Pittsburgh where you can get Pittsburgh themed gifts. The Florida pillow was in the U of Florida bookstore but I did not purchase it. The demitasse cup and saucer from a favorite restaurant, La Cucina Flegrea, no longer in business.

Do you keep a souvenir or two or three? Any special mementos of a place you have visited?  My sister’s Coney Island Paperweight was a souvenir in Saturday’s gallery.

When my friend Ann sees this post she will write and say “Pitch them!”

“Just get rid of it” my friend Ann says

“Just get rid of it”.

“No one wants it.”

“Collecting dust on a shelf means you have to clean it.”

”Sell it.”


Why is it easy for some people to get rid of things?declutter? downsize with no difficulty?

Beatrix Potter and friends