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I was sorting through some old recipes torn from magazines and newspapers, saved by my grandma, in an old discolored manila folder. Grandma has been gone since the '80s. I am not one to use recipes. I like to make up my own ingredients and measurements. Actually, I am surprised that my grandma had this file because she often-maybe always- cooked and baked the same way= by the way it looked. I had some favorites that she cooked or baked, and as a teen (thinking I should harvest her knowledge for using myself someday) I asked her several times if she could write it all down for me on a recipe card.

[Recipe cards. Remember those... before you could Goo--e anything you ever wanted to know about anything?]

Her reply was, "I don't know how I would write it all down. I just put it all together until it looks right."

I do have a few recipe cards that each of my grandmas wrote, as well as some my mom wrote. I cherish them more now for their handwritten nostalgia than the instructions they explain. Recognizing the beautiful and individual style of their handwritten script makes me smile.

As I looked through the tattered contents of the folder, I started mindlessly throwing the magazine and newspaper recipe scraps in the waste basket. Surely I would never use them, fire hazzard they were and all that...

Then I suddenly stopped and thought about the great things on those pages that surround these age old recipes. Time capsule-like graphics of products we still recognize dressed in newer labels and those super looking old colors that don't exist anymore in advertising (or book illustrations). I am sucked in by those vintage ink colors every time!!

These old product paper ephemera scraps are fun to use in collage or ATC art for backgrounds. Have fun with these. Compliments of my thrifty grandma, who saved everything and taught my mom to save everything.

Click on image to enlarge it.

Household Utopia

Don't you just adore the post WWII images of the "typical" household? Images and faces that seem like such a perfect comforting place to be....home. These faces look back at you like there is not a care in the world. I love those. I wanted to share some of my vintage booklet images I have- so you could see their smiling faces and giggle at the silliness of it all. Didn't these people have bratty kids or bills to worry about?

I have to say, "Sorry to disappoint." This isn't in fact my family in this image! They do not show the same enthusiasm for a new recipe from a cookbook that these happy Cold War Era people on this booklet cover do. I cook with imagination and by assembling memorized concoctions that are generational family favorites. I don't let cookbooks box me in to how food should go together to taste right and yummy. 

Why, YES! Thank you for asking. I do enjoy my Frigidaire!! Do You? I always cook in heels like that too. Do You?

Did you spot the sarcasm ?

These images also make me think of the movie "Blast From The Past". It is a great silly movie about a family living inside a backyard fallout shelter.

I love red and white and vintage so these booklets shown are a hit with me. I have them tucked in with my milk glass that is in a barrister case in my kitchen.

Needs and Wants

Here they are....my birthday requests. They work quite nicely too.
My friend surprised me with the oven mitt.
The kids picked out and presented me with the 3 circle red pot holders!!
My phone brought well wishes all during the day!
 I am very blessed to have such nice friends.

I am giving advance notice of my wish list for next May...It starts with a "C" and ends with "vette", it can go very fast and you can put the top down. I ended up with a collection of red pot holders...so a girl can always have dreams.