How To Make Toys For Girls And Boys, with a variety of Craftsman-influenced dolls' house furniture "to be made of cigar boxes." Free download from Project Gutenberg.
I'm going to download/print this book. Not just a dollhouse, but an apartment and and office building and a car/cart with a home made electric motor, windmill, airplane, kites, and a merry go round. Of course my miniature tools are still packed and I'd like/need a mini table saw and a place to work, but just wow! Shay - you really do find the very best things! And here I'd been wondering where I stashed my standing needlepoint frame and whether the one shop in town that sells wool has gone online. This is so much more fun.
BRB, gotta amalgamate my zinc pencil by rubbing it with mercury.
My mother once commented, after seeing us carefully installing her first grandchild's car seat, "We just put your bassinet in the back seat, I don't know how you kids survived."
The level of childrens' competence that our great-grandparents took for granted is mind-boggling. There are is a quote from one of the Candleford books about the sewing projects that the author and her schoolmates used to do - felling, hemstitching, buttonholing, smocking - all of this before the age of 12.
There's a cigar place in Manayunk, on the other side of Philly, that puts a bunch of (wood, mostly!) boxes out for a buck apiece during the big art festival there and every year I go "oh, I don't want to carry those around the whole time, we should stop by some other time" and we have never ever managed to make it to Manayunk outside of that art festival and right now I wish Past Karen had just grabbed a whole bag of 'em even if it meant maneuvering them on the train.
And yeah, my mother and I took sewing classes when I was a tween and teen and I made a lot of my own clothes. (They're all regrettable but it was the 70's so the problem wasn't that they were handmade...)
I also had a science kit with chemicals that Kids These Days would never be trusted with, but I am young enough that none of it was mercury.
Shay, my dad also smoked cigars, and I made my eldest daughter a wardrobe/carry case for her Penny Brite doll in a wooden box. I found it recently in the attic. Heaven only knows how long it's been there; Eldest daughter is 57! I'm in the process of refurbishing it now.
Daddy had lots and lots for the heavy "board" type boxes, as well. Mum, my sister and I used them for all sorts of things. I wonder how we managed to keep house without them!
I'm going to download/print this book. Not just a dollhouse, but an apartment and and office building and a car/cart with a home made electric motor, windmill, airplane, kites, and a merry go round. Of course my miniature tools are still packed and I'd like/need a mini table saw and a place to work, but just wow!
ReplyDeleteShay - you really do find the very best things! And here I'd been wondering where I stashed my standing needlepoint frame and whether the one shop in town that sells wool has gone online. This is so much more fun.
BRB, gotta amalgamate my zinc pencil by rubbing it with mercury.
ReplyDeleteMy mother once commented, after seeing us carefully installing her first grandchild's car seat, "We just put your bassinet in the back seat, I don't know how you kids survived."
I answered, "Some of us didn't!"
The level of childrens' competence that our great-grandparents took for granted is mind-boggling. There are is a quote from one of the Candleford books about the sewing projects that the author and her schoolmates used to do - felling, hemstitching, buttonholing, smocking - all of this before the age of 12.
ReplyDeleteKaren, my dad used to smoke cigars and we fought over the boxes. I wish I still had some of them.
ReplyDeleteThere's a cigar place in Manayunk, on the other side of Philly, that puts a bunch of (wood, mostly!) boxes out for a buck apiece during the big art festival there and every year I go "oh, I don't want to carry those around the whole time, we should stop by some other time" and we have never ever managed to make it to Manayunk outside of that art festival and right now I wish Past Karen had just grabbed a whole bag of 'em even if it meant maneuvering them on the train.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, my mother and I took sewing classes when I was a tween and teen and I made a lot of my own clothes. (They're all regrettable but it was the 70's so the problem wasn't that they were handmade...)
I also had a science kit with chemicals that Kids These Days would never be trusted with, but I am young enough that none of it was mercury.
Shay, my dad also smoked cigars, and I made my eldest daughter a wardrobe/carry case for her Penny Brite doll in a wooden box. I found it recently in the attic. Heaven only knows how long it's been there; Eldest daughter is 57! I'm in the process of refurbishing it now.
ReplyDeleteDaddy had lots and lots for the heavy "board" type boxes, as well. Mum, my sister and I used them for all sorts of things. I wonder how we managed to keep house without them!
I can remember covering one with a dark burgundy velvet to use as a jewelry box. This must have been fifty years ago if not more.
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