Pin Up Girls!

It's always fun to take a step back in time.  Whenever I get out the stack of 1945 Saturday Evening Post magazines to peruse, I know I'm in for a little time travel fun.

Paper craft with these great old advertisements gives them a new life and always makes me smile; I figure that's much better than sitting in a box in the basement where they had spent the last 34 years.

The graphics themselves are so much fun, I love the WW II era patriotism.  Lots of pictures of men in uniforms and women...wearing tap pants and bouncing out of bed.  This ad was OVALTINE!  She is guaranteed to 'wake up perky' if she drinks a cup of regular or chocolate flavor before retiring to bed.

Here they are selling zippers, yes, you heard me right.  A zipper for your corset!  Every ad had a sub-message about buying war bonds, or if Americans couldn't buy the products due to war production how it would be available to them later.  And, so Americans waited, and didn't have sugar or gasoline, and they didn't mind!  Can you imagine that today?

I listen to Glenn Miller and his orchestra while crafting so of course I had to include the lyrics to the song, Kalamazoo!  The 'Missus' up on the step ladder is sewing a rip in her window shade.  The ad read that Scotch Brand cellulose tape was now doing 'wartime work' making bomb covers.  Mending her shade will be so much easier with Scotch tape AFTER THE WAR IS OVER.  Until then, Scotch tape is protecting our boys!

Oh look!  She got a letter!  He's coming home!  She's at her dressing table getting ready.  I love the old movies where every woman had a dressing table where she primped!  

Home at last, and she has a bright white smile because she brushed her teeth with Pepsodent right before he got off the bus!  The underlying story, did you notice?  The prettiest pin up girl is the one who wrote to him and prayed for him,  waiting for him... 

AT HOME

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

Holding his niece prior to moving to Hawaii

My son, enlisted after 9/11 and serves in the Air Force, currently he is stationed at Hickam Air Force Base, Pearl Harbor. Don't let the base on the beach fool you, he works 12 hour shifts arriving 45 minutes early and staying 45 minutes late for briefings  He is my hero.  He spent his first four years of active duty in Tacoma, Washington; I figure he needs at least six more months of sun to dry out from the rain there!

He endured Basic Military Training in August in San Antonio; grueling days in the sun, running the required four miles per day at 4:00 a.m. because that's when it was cool.  He went to Texas at 155 lbs, he is 6' tall.  At graduation seven weeks later he weighed 142 lbs and his waist was smaller than mine!  As any mother will tell you, when your child is it training so are you.  He called home, told us what life was like and in the next five weeks I lost 10 pounds!  Torture the child and tell the Mom and they both think they're going to die!

He turned 21 while deployed to the Middle East.  His fellow Airmen served him  a bran muffin with 21 toothpicks in it!  You can only use what you've got and birthday cakes were sparse there. It was 130 degrees during the day cooling down to 80 degrees overnight.  

I have a Blue Star flag in my window, it's been 10 years now and I am very grateful and proud of all of the service men and women who sacrifice for our freedom.  I am also indebted to all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

We miss our Airman, he is a Technical Sergeant now working the night shift, keeping our country safe.

Happy as a Clam and Stuff Like That!

Love is in the air in the spring; or maybe it's pollen!  Whatever it is, pairs start pairing at this time of year.  I met Mr. Wonderful in the spring semester several lifetimes ago.  We fell in love at the "college in the Northwoods" where he rowed the canoe in the lake, singing songs of admiration.  Well actually, he did row the canoe but sang The Bear in Tennis Shoes while walking me home.  He's really quite lucky I gave him a second date, he's no Frank Sinatra.

Spring Crafting:

Pastel colors replace the red and bright blues in the craft room as Easter approached.  My banner of silly phrase tags made an appearance.  I love the old adages and think these little sweeties really are 'the bee's knees' when we put cuteness on a scale of ten.

The graphics for this set all came from the same book so you see repeat characters in the tags.  I like to carry the same theme along with the tags.  If you look you'll see that the scrapbook papers are coordinated and the color of the next tag is always in an accent on the previous one on the garland, or in this case, on the peg.

Lest I spend more money than I make buying garnishes (embellishments), I cut my own trims and use lots of my scraps.  Straight edged stickers with phrases also get trimmed with the scrapping scissors, cute counts!

Raising images off the tag using foamies  that I cut in strips and glue stick on or dots with stickum on each side gives a fun effect.

In this tag I used the background flower and cut it to put in the little girl's hand, an easy way to carry the theme on.

You can see that the tree is off the top; I do this frequently when placing the graphics.  The boy and girl are running off the sides too.  If you see a graphic that you like, angle it, use the top corners, it isn't a rule that it must fit on the tag.  Take a look at the You've Got Mail post for more tag making ideas.

I pin tags on measuring tape swagged on the wall, hang them from doorknobs, link them on pegs, and use them  for a wide range of decorating themes.  My Route 66 tags hung down a ribbon of musical notes in a three foot vertical banner on the side of my filing cabinet.  Tags are still one of my favorite things to make.

You've Got Mail!

Keeping with the World War II theme, I went to the US Postal Service for inspiration.  I love getting mail, the real kind with envelopes and stamps.  The kind you look at again and it makes you think of the sender who took the time to choose the paper, sit and compose their thoughts and send it off.  I love email too, it's immediate gratification.  When my son was deployed to the Middle East, I loved to see his name in my inbox and that email was worth more than gold.  But the mail I'm profiling is paper letters sent back and forth from a mother to her son, a wife to her husband, a sailor to his sweetheart, a Fly Boy to his family.

The forerunner to shrinking a document was Victory Mail known as V-Mail.  The letters were photographed and a tiny replica went back and forth across the continents carrying news of the battlefront and the home fires.

M:  using her Palmer Method best penmanship we know she is sending her love to that guy in the goggles, her Army Air Corps fighter pilot.

A:  His reply sent from afar; he learned in the Saturday Evening Post ad that writing would help him know "How to Understand a Woman."  He used his Parker 51 pen and his Watermans Ink.

I:  "The baby had a check up and he's growing so big!  Here's snapshot for you to put in your helmet, Honey!"  The Dennison Company urges her to send V-Mail and "Keep it Light."

L:  She's got mail!  A letter!  A letter!  She looks at his photo and prays for him to come home safe, and she cries a little bit...The envelope graphic shows a post mark of 1945, it won't be long.

Love ya, miss your face,
Mom

Saturday (Evening Post) Spinner!

The photo display spinner is something I eyed on the Creative Breathing blogspot.  Miss Elizabeth is the most artistically inspiring woman I have never met!  She's my imaginary friend as I stalk her blog and drool over the paper craft creations that I wouldn't have dreamed up in a million years.  Go visit the Creative Breathing blog for eye candy and craft tutorials galore.

Once again, my stash of 1943-44 Saturday Evening Post magazines are pulled into action.  I sorted through the ads this time in search of small graphics suitable for a cut and paste project.  Since this magazine was published long before the days of computers, cut and paste on this little artistic endeavor really used scissors and glue!   The photo spinner comes with index cards to mount your photos to  display a collection of relatives, travels or other photography subjects.  

My vision in creating my spinner was to top each card with coordinating scrapbook papers and mount the graphics from the ads in sections.  Women's interest products came first and includes ads for Pyrex bakeware, girdles, a new 'Coolerator' refrigerator, Palmolive soap (14 days to a lovelier complexion!) and Campbell's soups.  The men's section includes ads for ink pens, auto products and shaving tools and soda pop.  

Options

Setting the tone for my crafting I played Glenn Miller's big band tunes as I furiously cut tiny details from the advertisements one by one on the card stock.  Listening to "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,"  I thought of the women who had their sweethearts sent to Europe, North Africa or the Pacific.  I read the magazine pages and listened to the music they would have heard on their radios over the 15 hours or so I spent cutting and pasting.  Rosie the Riveter went to work day after day in a factory and dreamed of the time when her soldier would come home and they would start a family and probably, live happily ever after.

The woman saluting her husband had a note from her employer included in the ad, it said, "She's doing a great job, Boss!"  Oh my, see what 60 years has done for woman kind!?

Don't forget to ask for your FREE sample of Verithin!

I was intrigued by the advertisements.  There was a  war bond statement on almost every company's ad.  Rationing was another topic and I smiled reading the statement, "Due to the paper shortage we encourage you to pass your Post on when you have finished reading it."  The Verithin Colored Pencil ad gave a mailing address to send for a free sample of the colored lead you would like to try.  Little Lulu was spokeswoman for Kleenex tissues.  Fibber McGee and Molly had their photo on the Johnson's Wax ads.  

My history lesson includes 40 different advertisements, some for products that no longer exist.  I had so much fun I may decide to add more cards later.

So now I am signing off, 'bye bye and BUY BONDS!'