And Then I Jizzed. In. My. Pants ....

MINE:

Kitchenaid Deluxe Edition mixer in Almond Cream. In my kitchen. For me. Forever.

Can I get a "Fuck Yeah!"?

Also? It's a Pinplement. AWWWWWYEAH.

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It's ALIVE!

Remember when we took possession of our new home on our anniversary in July and I joked about how long it would take until we killed the roses?

It took one day.

It turns out the previous owners had moved at least a month or two before we got the keys to the place. And it just so happens that they didn't leave anyone in charge of watering the roses or the lawn. And it also just so happens that we had one of the hottest summers on record. So when we rolled up to make it a home sweet home, our rose bush and front yard looked like kindling. Seriously, Smokey the Bear was *this close* to mauling us.

I tried to bring it back to life. I fed it water and dead headed the rose flowers. I trimmed off the vicious black spot fungus that had overtaken the leaves. And trimmed it again when it came back. And again. And again. I used a special organic fertilizer to spur on healthy growth. The fertilizer seemed to work, not in producing roses but in allowing the branches to grow super long like thorny octopus legs. So I trimmed those dang branches down and continued the cycle of watering and trimming.

And finally, a few days into October:

VICTORY!

There are now two roses on the bush that once had dozens. Whatever! It's progress - and, naturally, just in time for the frost season.

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Sew Excited!

Guess what I did yesterday?

Trimmed your moustache?

Yes.

But I also went to my first sewing class! Relearning how to sew has long been on my list of to-dos for a lot of reasons - capabilities are good, I've always wanted to try to make my own clothes and home decor items, and I don't want to be a total moron when I eventually take on the 40s War Wife Experiment (eeee!), whose mantra of "Make Do and Mend" involved far, far more skills than I currently possess (and I doubt my strongest ability - yelling at the TV during Bachelor Pad while ignoring the little voice inside my head that says I should read a book instead - will be of much use).

Yesterday's was the first of six 'learn to sew' classes I'm taking at The Make Den in Toronto and it was awesome! It's during the afternoon, so there were only four of us there; two of us were the self-employed type, one was a Masters student and another girl who had an employer that basically lets her work from home and on her own hours (if only all offices were like that). In other words, three out of four of us taking the class were modern-day bums. Hurrah!

Along with learning how to thread the machine and checking out the different stitches, we made our first project - a headband with an elasticated back. Here it is modelled on moi - the girl who can't take a front-facing shot of herself to save her life:

Here's a shot that nine out of ten brooding teenage Twilight fans prefer:

Oooo. Can you feel the angst?

Before you know it, I'll be making other crafty headware, like the kind modelled on this lady from the I-shit-you-not-it's-actually-real cover of the July 1974 Women's Circle magazine:

If you thought the 50s housewife was a little nuts, I'm telling you, she had NOTHING on the 70s crafty housewife. The magazines I have from that era are full-on crazeballs (I'll scan some pics from those shortly. Total goldmine.).

I like to think that it's actually these women that got men on board with 'women's lib'; her husband would come home from work to discover his wife had spent the entire day making bizarre skunk hats, shitty teddy bears and a meal made with heaping amounts of 'healthy' margarine and Sweet n' Low.

"Honey, maybe you should get a job," he'd say as he'd bewilderedly stare at the growing collection of macramé owls and aluminium foil sculptures decorating the home.

"Oh, hush," she'd say, as she'd glue a googly eye onto her latest piece of art. "Do you really want a wife who works outside the home? I wouldn't have the time to do all these lovely things around the house. That reminds me, I made you a new vest ..."

Image Source: Handmade By Mother

I promise that this sewing class won't be the gateway drug into bad crocheted items. I hope.

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50s Christmas: Everything Is Aluminumated

Sorry for the lateness of today's post. Loading a video to YouTube proved annoyingly time-consuming and error-filled. Yarg.

Today, I show you the completed look of our home when the 50s Housewife Does Christmas! But first, I have some gift wrapping to do. There actually wasn't much to wrap as we mainly gave gift cards this year (I know, not very 50s of us) but I turned to my resources for inspiration all the same. This one is from Better Homes and Gardens (Dec. 1959). Wrapping with straws and muffin cups and aluminum foil ... something tells me this woman didn't get out of the kitchen much:

And then there are these bizarre suggestions (I'm looking at your Puff Ball Container) from Good Housekeeping's Book of Cookies:

Well ... if they say so! I had picked up some cute jewelry for a couple people and wrapped my heart out with the 50s spirit flowing from my fingertips. The results:

After the straw tree incident, I was quick to chat with Patrick and explain that those things were not garbage - despite the fact that one of the packages looked like it was covered in Santa pubes. That one just so happens to be for my mother-in-law who will undoubtedly correctly think her son has married a raging alcoholic.

Gift Wrap: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Highly Flammable
√ Confusing

With gifts wrapped, it was time to give them a home - under a tree. This was my big 1950s splurge - I bought a vintage aluminum tree, a rotating musical stand and a colour wheel. Say it with me: SQUEEEEEEE! (or if you're Patrick: UUUUUGGGGGHHH. Where are we going to put that?) Naturally, I also picked up a bundle of vintage mercury glass ornaments from the 50s - and, my, how they're breakable.

Here's some pictures of the Christmas tree craziness:

Fun, right? I'm not sure why these aren't popular anymore ... The shock risk? The tackiness? The strange tumours people develop after being near one? Those pictures just don't do my darling any justice, but you'll eventually see a video in which I oggle our aluminum tree like I'm some kind of Christmas perv, so be sure to check that out!

Christmas Tree: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Presents an obvious danger to small children, pets and idiots
√ Cancer-causing (maybe? Just a guess)

Image Source: Family Christmas Online

With all this great stuff set up, there was only one 1950s holiday decor aspect missing: a gruesome electrical fire lighting! I had intended to show you vintage bubble lights, but that's one of the things that the post office appears to be holding onto indefinitely. Boo. We instead bought large bulb indoor / outdoor LED lights, which I guess are safer, but obviously not quite the same.

We are also tempting a flammable fate by having a few candles about, but I did resist going for that 1950s mega-fire hazard, the rotating angel chimes. It's basically a flimsily-held together spinner that moves when the heat from a bunch of candles beneath it rises. It's basically a balancing act that meets fire - what could possibly go wrong? (Google: "Angel Chimes" + cat + disaster)

With all this crafting going on, I hope no one out there thinks I'm being a neglectful 50s housewife when it comes to dear Patrick. Rest assured, his bar is well stocked - now with some roasted nuts and marzipan. That's enough alcohol to get a small elephant wasted (Merry Christmas, Babar).

I also made a festive meal today, straight out of the Better Homes and Gardens December 1959 issue:

 I followed the recipe to the letter - which means nearly everything on our plate came from a can. Never had I ever had hamburger that contained evaporated milk but ... tis the season?

It turned out fine, although Patrick did not care for the sweet potatoes, especially when he found out they weren't fresh from Mexico. He also didn't try the plum pudding, but if you've followed our previous 50s housewife experiments and are familiar with what edibles Patrick loathes, you'd hardly be surprised that something stuffed with plums and raisins got the big ol' nose-turn by Mr. Byck. What-ev.

Holiday Meal: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Highly Flammable
√ Diabetes and / or Cancer-causing

So - wanna see the whole place done up? It's more charming in person, but here's a quick video of the place, with a scotch-sipping cameo by Patrick!

Yes, I realize the fact that I made and posted this video makes me an ultra dork. Is that really news?

Tomorrow you'll read all about our 50s Christmas Cocktail Party for which I made not one, not two, but three molds. The holiday spread really was something to vomit over.

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More 50s Christmas Darlings and Disasters

Another day, another 50s Housewife Does Christmas attempt.

That picture is of a vintage bottle brush tree and is the sort of Christmas craft a 50s housewife might find herself working on. That one stood about 12" tall, was made of a bottle brush (hence the name) and a deconstructed brass scrubbing pad, featured loads of little trickets and ornaments (this person never heard the phrase, "less is more") - and sold for $300 on eBay (no, not to me - I'm not that into recreating the era).

Keen to make what would surely become a valuable family heirloom (heh), I decided to try to create my own bottle brush tree. It turns out that they don't make bottle brushes like that anymore. The next best option was to find a sisal tree at a craft store.

I realize this next resource is not from the 1950s, but it's too good not to share. First, the intro of this waiting-to-go-viral video made me wonder if I was watching a secret Bruce McCulloch skit from Kids in the Hall. Turns out it's real. Second, it features my favourite kind of person ever: The Southern Gay. I just loves me a homosexual man from Georgia. His voice is butta' to my bread - especially when he starts to get excited about glitter:



I don't know how long they were letting their trees sit in that bleach, but mine sat overnight+ and the shade only changed a tiny bit, as you can see:

Oh well. I glued on some mini ornaments and voila! Soon to be sold for hundreds of dollars on eBay? Not likely - but as you'll quickly discover, it's not the most hideous thing I made that day:

Bottle Brush Tree: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Presents an obvious danger to small children, pets and idiots (specifically, the cup o' bleach you have laying around to make this)

With that tree done, I decided to tackle another - this time a weird table decoration that I found in a 1959 magazine that was made of straws (the centre one):

As usual, there were no instructions on how to make it, so I played around with a pack of straws for a while. At first, I decided to encircle the straws around something round and then tape them where they lay:

Um, why do you own a can of Vienna Sausages?

That is for me to know and for the guests of our 50s Christmas Cocktail Party to have nightmares over, Mr. Italics.

It turns out this method caused the circle of straws to collapse on itself (like a stomach would upon eating the contents of that can), so I cut the circle in half, crushed them at the top and taped them together. I then went about decorating the tree with bits of paper. The result ...

You don't have to say it. What happened next says it all. This little tree won't be featured in any other photos of our holiday home - and it's not because of silly things like "pride" or "shame." Patrick accidentally threw it out, figuring it for a pile of garbage. For real. I can't say I blame him. That said, I've made a note to myself: Never take Patrick to the National Gallery.

Straw Tree: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Highly flammable
√ Confusing

One last craft for the day - a wreath for our door! This Christmas, I wanted something that would tell all the people who pass by our home a simple holiday message: A crazy woman lives here.

My magazines provided me with a couple options that would do just that - all using muffin cups:

I went with the simplest possible route to create this look. Cardboard, streamer paper, muffin cups, a few beads and some glue later and ...

Not totally horrible, right? Slight vindication for the earlier craptastic crafting, yes? But so not what you'd think to put on your door either.

Muffin Cup Wreath: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Highly flammable
√ Confusing

Having had to go into the kitchen to get muffin cups got me in the mood to do some make-ahead baking for our party, so I figured I'd do something simple like sugar cookies. The recipe seemed pretty simple and the same kind you probably still use today. And yet ...

Lesson: Don't try to put all four baking sheets in the oven, because the bottom rack of cookies will burn, burn, burn (the top rack of cookies will somehow be perfect). The smoke will fill your apartment and you will spend the next desperate seconds clawing at the smoke alarm lid to disconnect the wires before it activates a building-wide alarm, sending the fire department to the complex.

Sugar Cookies: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Colourful
√ Diabetes-causing
√ HIGHLY flammable

I may have damaged the smoke alarm ... which is great timing considering my home is currently floor to ceiling 50s-grade flammable.

Tomorrow: Our super vintage tree! 50s gift wrapping! More goodies!

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Getting Into The Spirit of Things

For some people, the holiday season doesn't quite feel like it's arrived until they do a few things:

1. Cram as much candy and cookies and eggnog down their gullets as they can
2. Crank up the holiday music
3. Fight the crowds at the mall for gifts
4. Deck the halls with an assortment of holiday decor
5. Start drinking hot rum and Baileys and scotch ... before noon
6. Go to church

 We're usually pretty minimalist when it comes to holiday decorations, but as this is the 50s Housewife Does Christmas, I figured it was best to start there. Hopefully having all the holiday cheer visually around me would give me the inspiration to go through with the other 50s-era holiday plans.

I recently gave you a sneak peak of some 1950s Christmas decor - the putz house. Darling! Well, here is the whole village set up on our counter, atop polyester snow and lit from behind with holiday lights:

I admit, it could look better had I had the patience to prop the homes up a bit more, but because they are so light, the putz homes tend to float on the batting rather than nestle into it, and the lights that I popped into their backs were a bit too heavy for some of the little homes, causing them to tip. A true 50s housewife would have stayed up until the crack of dawn making these just so, but as I am not insane there was much more to do, I moved on to the next project.

Putz Village: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details
√ Colourful
√ Highly flammable
√ Presents an obvious danger to small children, pets and idiots

Confidence growing from having completed the putz village, I tackled something more crafty: paper ring garland. Being frugal and wanting to keep the project as flammable as possible, I made the rings from crepe paper (streamers) rather than construction paper. This also made it look more authentic to the type of garland you could buy in the 1940s and 50s.

 It was very easy, but obviously rather tedious. A great deal of zoning out was involved. But 120 green, white and red rings later (I counted), I was finally done. I strung the paper ring garland from corner to corner of our living room, and where the garland crossed, I hung a big, red honeycomb bell that I found at the dollar store (I was grateful they had it - I would have otherwise had to trek to one of those gaudy wedding stores in Little Italy to get some).

Paper Ring Garland and Honeycomb Bell: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details 
√ Colourful  
√ Highly flammable

Hey! It's time for more holiday cheer - a drink!

Yes ... so I whipped those eggs and ... nah, just look to the bottom part of that recipe, "Quick Christmas Eggnog." Get eggnog, add booze. Boom - done! It's not cheating if it's in my vintage cookbooks (in this case, Good Housekeeping's Christmas Cook Book circa 1958).

Quick Christmas Eggnog: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Diabetes-causing  
√ Highly flammable

Feeling instantly cheerier, I turned to my December 1959 edition of Better Homes & Gardens and it was chock-full of relatively easy make-at-home decorations with materials that are still largely available today - I'll tell you about more of those tomorrow, but here's the last craft I did that day:

Wire hangers: not just for abortions. All you do is take some coat hangers, bend the hooks into circles and bend the bottoms to form gradually more pronounced 'M's. Connect them to one another and hang ornaments from their ends. I happen to have some vintage mercury glass ornaments (you'll see more of them later), so I used those to create this:

Well ... it sort of looks like the picture in the magazine, right?

Holiday Hanger Mobile: 1950s Christmas Checklist
√ Tiny details 
√ Colourful 
√ Presents an obvious danger to small children, pets and idiots 
√ Confusing

Seeing as there's eggnog that needs to be drunk, I'll sign off for now. More 50s-era Christmas decor and crafts tomorrow!

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We're at the Mercy of Canada Post

Howdy.

I had intended on telling you all about the 50s Housewife Does Christmas today, but thanks to some major draggage by the post office on a couple "crucial" items pertaining to the project, I'm delaying my update a bit. I'm still doing things up here, and will share all that on la blog, but it might not be for a couple days.

That said, I am currently in crafting hell, 1950s style. Despite being a 'creative' person, I am not really a crafty person - my ideas tend to literally fall apart in the execution phase - largely due to my lack of patience for making things just so. As you can imagine, many of the holiday crafts from 1950s magazines were directed at women who were keen to do anything that wasn't scrubbing the toilet, so the projects are rather exact and meticulous looking - while still totally ridiculous. Also working against me is the fact that instructions at the time for said crafts were bare bones, so I've had to goof with things to figure out how to make them (I'm presuming people were smarter then and could figure stuff out with their own brains - a huge departure from today's society, where we depend on step-by-step videos to teach us how to do the most simplistic of tasks). So, because of my ease to tantrum in the midst of crafting and the amount of guess-work on how these things are supposed to come together, I have half a dozen incomplete Christmas creations strewn about, as if a bunch of elves came by and barfed in every corner and surface of my home. As you can imagine, Patrick is delighted to arrive to this sight when he returns from work.

While I'm fussing with crepe paper and cotton batting and Ativan some truly ugly ornaments behind the scenes, light up a Lucky and enjoy this random home movie I found online of a Christmas party from the 1950s, bizarrely set to the 1967 Moody Blues hit, "Nights In White Satin":




Image Source: Better Homes and Gardens, December 1959

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Disasters in the Kitchen

Today I tried my hand at making favours. I wanted to create little mini wedding cakes out of low-fat brownies. I had such a vision for them. Little, cute, round, darling. Something that would make Martha proud.

The brownies - in their natural pan-form - turned out great. Moist, tasty, chewy ...

The mini wedding cakes, however ....

This is what I imagine happens when you feed a dog ground beef:

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My attempts to make different icing styles DID NOT help matters, and if anything, gave these little "treats" the appearance of different phases of wetness.

Welcome to our wedding everyone. Please enjoy.

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