Lil' Vintage Story Books #26

 Welcome again to Lil' Vintage Story Books, where we share our favorite vintage children's books!

 Today's book is yet another Little Golden Book, this time "The Little Golden ABC", illustrated by Cornelius DeWitt, and published in 1951.

 There's no story, just a different letter on each page with illustrations of things that begin with that letter.

 These pages are so gorgeous!  How adorable would they be framed in a nursery with the child's initial?

 This owl is just the cutest, isn't he?

 And I love the detail on the queen on this one!

 Look at the striped boxer shorts here!  Underwear- teehee!

 And finished off with a lovely illustration of a zoo- just adorable!!

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New Artwork

 I did a new piece this week.  I guess you could say it's a family self-portrait of sorts.  I go back and forth between wanting to use collage elements in my artwork or just pure paint and pencil.  This time I decided to go with some collage.  I originally began with just images of the children (representing my three kids), but added the parents halfway into the piece. 

 This really looks like my kids- the two boys playing with some sort of ball, and Avery in between, trying to play, too.  However, neither my husband nor I can claim to be dapper as those parents are!

I just can't seem to do a piece without arch shapes, or, as in this case, arches upon arches upon arches upon arches!

I'm happy with it.  I think I'll need to do some rearranging, to fit it onto the wall in our family room!

Oh, and by the way, if you haven't noticed, I added a little section on the right with links to the different room "tours" in my house, in case you've missed some!

Lil' Vintage Story Books #25

Welcome again to Lil' Vintage Story Books, where we share our favorite vintage children's books!

Today's book is called "Whatever Happens to Kittens?", written by Bill Hall, illustrated by Virginia Parsons, and published in 1967.

 If you aren't a cat-lover like me, you may not care for this book, but the concept of it is really sweet.

 It talks about  kittens that are born in lots of different places.  Can you guess which one is my favorite above?  The little doll buggy, of course!

 Then we see this one particular cat and her three kittens.  (Love the colors in the above illustration!)

 Once her kittens are old enough, we get to see where they went to live! One lives in an apartment with a little girl.

 Another lives out in the country.

 The book also shows other kittens and what happened to them.

 That's a lucky cat that gets to help at the butcher shop!

 Again, if you aren't a cat person, this book probably isn't your taste, but we all love it here!

 Such a sweet back cover!

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Family Name Plaque

This is something I made several months ago, but never got around to sharing with you.  It is a sign with our last name, the year we were married, and all of our names on it.  There are tons of these on Etsy, but they're pretty expensive, and I couldn't find any with the exact look I wanted.  So I decided to make one!

I knew I could handle doing the painting of the background and the flourish, but I didn't feel I was up to hand-lettering the whole thing!  I don't have a Silhouette machine, but there are people on Etsy who will do custom-lettering on the Silhouette for you.  So I ordered the vinyl lettering, and it worked wonderfully!  It was much cheaper than ordering the whole thing, and I was able to get the exact font and size I needed.

 I knew exactly where I wanted it to hang, so I customized the colors and size for this spot over our bed.

 The kids love to stand on the bed and point out everyone's names!

Some New Things...

 I've completed the cover of Avery's latest journal.  The book was getting a little too full, so it was time to finish it and move onto the next book!  I used the cover of a vintage baby album as the background.  It actually said "Baby's Precious Moments", but I covered up "baby's" since she's really not a baby anymore!

 Here's a photo where you can see it sitting on her dresser.  The fabrics on the right side are ties that keep it closed.

 You can also spy one of the newest additions to her room- the adorable paper doll!  Isn't she cute?  I always try to find ones that look like Avery- with brown hair and blue eyes.  This one came in a paper doll lot I won on Ebay.

  

 And speaking of new additions, can you spot what's new on this wall?

 Here's a closer look...

That's right!  This adorable cardboard kitten pin-up!  I just love it, and so does Avery.  She points out her new kitty every time we go in her room.  There are a couple more on Etsy if you're interested.  Just put "kitten dolly toy co" into the search field, and they should come up.

Hope you have a great weekend!  My boys have their first soccer game of the season, so they're extra-excited!

Lil' Vintage Story Books #24

Welcome again to Lil' Vintage Story Books, where we share our favorite vintage children's books!

Today we have a sweet book called "Where Did the Baby Go?", written by Sheila Hayes, illustrated by Eloise Wilkin, and published in 1974.

 It's about a little girl who finds an old photo of a baby wearing a big hat.

 She asks her mother who the baby is, and the mother tells her it is someone she sees every day.

   The little girl begins to look around the house for the baby.  

I just love Eloise Wilkin's illustrations, don't you?The detail she puts in every picture is amazing- the wallpaper patterns, the quilt, the rug...

 As an artist, it would drive my crazy having to paint the little flowers on this dress on every single page!  But obviously, Eloise Wilkin thrives on it!

 The little girl continues looking for the baby.  Her mother gives her the hint that the baby liked to play dress-up.

 She runs to her mother's closet and looks among the dress-up clothes.  She finds the hat from the picture and looks at herself in the mirror...

 ...and realizes that the baby was herself!  She's so proud!

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Obligatory Easter Pics

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!  Ours was so nice here.  We had gone to a church service the previous Thursday night (the church has services on various days to accomodate everyone's schedules), so we were able to have a leisurely Easter morning around the house.  We had an egg hunt, then took a trip to a wonderful park across town, where we had a picnic, played at the playground, and took a nice walk on the trails.  Because it was Easter, it was almost completely empty, so the kids loved having all the playground equipment to themselves!

 Since we didn't have to get dressed up for church, I let the boys pick out their own clothes, and dressed Avery in this cute bunny jumper.  Absolutely everything they're wearing is from the thrift stores (except Avery's socks!). 

 Oh, and their egg-hunting bags are from Anthropologie- ha ha!  

I just had to add this last photo of Avery and the Easter bunny.  It's from the previous day when we went to an egg hunt at my mother-in-law's house.  Avery wanted nothing to do with that bunny, and I can't say that I blame her- the bunny's a little scary looking!!