Collecting Things of Beauty
April 3, 2007 at 5:58 pm | In books and mags, vintage crafty |Last week I mentioned* my favorite craft book from childhood, and here’s another peek at it: Childcraft volume 11, “Make and Do.” I love this book so, so much. Somewhere along the way the rest of the Childcraft set vanished, but Make and Do is with me for life.
I traced the paper dolls, cooked the recipes, practiced the magic tricks, and played the car games with my brother. I had a trunk full of my mom’s 60s clothes from college and I would play dress-up all the time like the Halloween costumes in the book. My favorite Easter ever was when my Easter basket was a surprise sewing basket — with real, grown-up scissors and my very own measuring tape and thread, and I could hand-sew clothes for the army of yarn dolls my friend Sarah and I had made…
I still remember playing with all the vintage buttons I had: pouring them out of the Mason jar, and arranging them just-so and then changing everything all around. And I’d restring broken jewelry on dental floss and feel so glamorous with an improvised bracelet or necklace on. So of course my favorite pages of all were “Collecting Things of Beauty”:
One funny thing: at the time my favorite colors were pink and purple, and so when I proudly wrote my name in my very own copy of course I reached for the purple marker. Twenty-some years later I’m not so wild about the color, but I love seeing my wobbly little four-year-old handwriting, before I was very good at Ns, and when I adored purple so much.
*Lynn, my copy is actually blue and it’s volume 11 (the 1976 edition), but you nailed it — pretty impressive from a picture of half of one page! Mine is way well-loved at this point, the blue is all scuffed up but I love the colors…
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
Oh! I love that book too. My copy is somewhere in the attic. (And now I want it!)
Comment by Sarah — April 3, 2007 #
oh how wonderful, and how sweet your crafty, purple, childhood handwriting! i think the only thing I have from that age is Little Monster’s Bedtime book (which taught me to love poetry, I think).
Comment by Nancy — April 3, 2007 #
oh my god, susan! i love those books1 i just discovered them a few years back, they work wonderful for altered books!!! this post is so awesome, YOU are awesome!!
kathy
Comment by kathy — April 3, 2007 #
oh man! I miss my copy of that book. I just adored looking through it and having creative dreams. My copy was with the green on the top.
Comment by Jennifer — April 4, 2007 #
I’m so glad there are other Make and Do lovers around! I love that book so much. btw, there are LOTS of copies on eBay and I’ve seen them in thrift stores too, if you’re missing yours…
ps Nancy, that is so sweet that you learned to love poetry from your Little Monster book!
Comment by Susan — April 4, 2007 #
…the missing link. I looked for Make and Do in my set after your comment on my blog about childcraft and couldn’t find one by that name. I have a 1960 set, I think the comparable book is number 8, Creative Play and Hobbies. How fun!
Comment by Jaime — April 5, 2007 #
I loved those books as a kid! I just bid on a set on ebay. Such great memories…
Comment by Deanna — April 9, 2007 #
The tin can stilts and the freezer box doll furniture were only two of my favorite things from the book. I still have my most loved set and volume 11 is also the favorite of my children.
Comment by Rhonda — May 2, 2007 #