Customer Reviews

Kitschy Crafts: A Celebration of Overlooked 20th-Century Crafts

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So, the picture on the front, the reason I bought the book, those instructions, not in there.
Great if you are interested in what kitsch used to look like, not if you want to know how they used to do it.
Great pictures.
If anyone know what the base of the craft on the front cover is made of, PLEASE tell me.

So you know all of those patterns and projects that everyone has been into lately? The Vintage Retro cute stuff? These are all of the OTHER ones. The vintage retro ones that were so ugly during their day that people have been trying to forget them for decades...
Except the sock monkey. There is a sock monkey, and he is great, as all sock monkeys are.

I was at a Half Price book store in Dallas just minding my own business thumbing through old magazines and craft books when I picked up Kitschy Crafts: A Celebration of Overlooked 20th-Century Crafts by by Jo Packham and Matt Shay. My first thoughts were wow what cute old graphics and secondly this is a lot like Leah Kramer's The Craftster Guide to Nifty, Thrifty, and Kitschy Crafts: Fifty Fabulous Projects from the Fifties and Sixties. Both have adorable re-do's of old vintage craft projects like toilet paper covers and macaroni art. So anyway there I am flipping through and all the sudden I land on page 95 where a doll in a crocheted dress and a pink plastic elephant were staring back at me and I did a double take. I went though a range of emotions quickly from: "wow they're cute" to "hmmm that looks vaguely familiar" to looking on the next page and shouting out loud in the book store "Hey that's my bathroom". I mean you can even see my tooth paste, prescription bottles, framed pictures of husbands and more. Most importantly you can see the amazing custom mosaic my mother Fredda Perkins author of Wall Pockets of the Past: Collector's Identification and Value Guide did for my bathroom.

Further flipage resulted in discovering my living room on page 78-79. My living room shares the page with a fun project on making a paper collage. The project actually looks really easy and fun. I am partial to the home décor pictures inside but the projects are the main focus and they are really cute. I have to say I am partial to the safety pin necklace. Maybe I will make something with safety pins for The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girl's Guide to Handmade Jewelry part 2!