SOAP

Now you know! ;)

The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie

I totally forgot I had scanned this condensed Children's Digest version of L. Frank Baum's "The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie" until a friend mentioned Oz on Facebook earlier today (I meant to post this last month around the same time as WICKEDISHRAG.) From my very brittle July 1951 copy, and with a cover graced by a typically fabulous Mary Blair painting, (interior art duties going to another tremendous illustrator of kid's books, Art Seiden); anyone interested in reading more of this story should check out Baum's "American Fairy Tales" first published over 100 years ago!

Hip-Nip Drink Flask

Here's something fun I picked up the other day for $6 at an antique mall: it's a Hip-Nip drink flask with funny art on the bottle and a hilarious boozer head for the bottle cap-- and yes, it's the perfect thing to hold my hillbilly lovin' mountain dews! Google search shows it originally came in a super neat box too, (unfortunately not included with my purchase), and some lucky folks out there might even possess Hip-Nip's sexy counterpart, "Hot-Nip" -- yes, there's a female version too! Produced in the 50's (?) by Garvin-Milbit, you might've been pretty cool 'n kitschy pulling this out of your coat pocket to chug down a swig o'poison back in the day, but definitely not hip(ster!)

Click HERE and HERE for more!

The Fireside Cook Book '49 (PART ONE)

Possibly the most impressively illustrated cook book in the history of mid century recipe tomes is The Fireside Cook Book by James A. Beard first published in 1949. A heavy duty, square-bound hardcover, and over 300 pages long, this "complete guide to fine dining for beginners and experts" contains over 1200 recipes and over 400 beautiful illustrations by my favorite artistic dynamic duo ever, Alice and Martin Provensen (find out more about them by clicking HERE! or just google their names for endless examples of their fabulous children's book illustrations.) Bursting with gorgeous color, and so many imaginative lay-outs it'll seriously make your head explode-- throughout the entire month of August 2015 we will be opening the pages of this wonderful collection and taking a look at various highlights, so keep checking back for more-- Bon Appétit!

August!

Lots of fun stuff comin' up all this month, like this awesome illustration by Alice and Martin Provensen from James A. Beard's The Fireside Cook Book, 1949. More images from this stunning collection, as well as other things you've come to love from this blog too!

See ya's in a few :)

Ghostly Gallery

A few years back, I posted scans of Fred Banbery art from another amazingly spooky collection of stories called Haunted Houseful (click HERE if you missed it) --and today we have more! This selection of eerie imagery comes from Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery, Random House / 1962, containing supernatural gems by Algernon Blackwood, F. Marion Crawford, H. G. Wells, Henry Kuttner, Robert Louis Stevenson, and many more. Man, I'd love to see Banbery's work in person-- it's fantastically fun and downright terrifying-- definitely the nightmare stuff that fueled the imaginations of my generation.

WICKEDISHRAG

A very cute book from '68, written and illustrated by Eugenie, Wickedishrag is about a little girl named Gwen and her unfortunate encounter with some mean 'ol witches! Fun tale with adorable artwork... and today's post is also very specially dedicated to another little and very mischievous / adorable Gwenie that I know! :)