I promised I’d post some pictures from the 1955 American Home magazines that I received a few weeks ago. What fun it has been leafing through them! If you missed my recent post on bad soup ideas from Campbell’s, you must go back and see it. There are some things that are better left in history, and that’s one of them.

There are some other things that history buried, and we should be forever thankful. Certain decorating ideas, for example. Sometimes I stare at rooms bedecked in vivid colors and myriad patterns and wonder what it would have been like to actually live in a room like that. Did the occupants suffer from dizziness or chronic gastric complaints? Did those ailments suddenly stop after moving? Once you see these pictures, I believe you’ll feel the same.

Yes, the picture is flippin’ huge. They all will be, as I want you to admire all the loveliness of this particular decorator’s inspiration. See the green? Not so bad here, really. It matches the dress of the woman in the portrait, and provides a nice (albeit Christmasy) contrast to the fireplace. It almost looks like a nice place to curl up and read a book on a cold winter’s night, no?

Well, would you feel the same way if you just walked in from this room?

(No, that’s not a gigantic column in the middle of the room. It’s a double page spread.)
The green. It’s in this room too. With curtains to match!
So, my original question: would the green start to become a bit much if you walked into one vividly green room into another? Yes? Well, then you can imagine how your eyes might become a bit crossed if you also had to walk through this room on your way to the other green rooms:

Ha ha! It’s another — ha ha! — green room. A green bedroom this time. And just to mix things up a little bit, they didn’t paint the walls green this time, they found the greenest carpet in all the land. If they had a dog, I bet this was his favorite room.

Oh, but we’re not done. No, siree. The decorator just couldn’t let you by with just THREE green rooms in your house from the underworld. He/she just had to slip in one more:

Now, when I originally took this pictures and uploaded them to my computer, I was so busy being horrified by the greenness that I didn’t notice that this last picture is simply a different view of Room #2. (See the white table?) This is the other end of that room, but that doesn’t excuse the bad taste.

Obviously, this end of the room is reserved for the chairs so they can congregate and visit with one another.

A friend and I visited a local consignment shop the other day. Despite it being local (ok, ok, it’s a few miles out of town, but I still consider it local), it was the first time I had been the first time I had been in there. To tell the truth, when I stepped into the store, I felt a little let down, because I had hoped for fewer clothes and more piles o’ stuff where I’d have a good chance of scoring something retro.

Imagine my surprise when I started lifting up dishes in a stack and found this gem:

It looks like it might be a serving piece with its larger oval shape. There is absolutely no marking anywhere on the dish that says who made it or what collection it’s from. Despite it’s “generic” status, though, I absolutely love it, despite the chip on the side, and despite the fact that the silver edging has a bit of wear on it. $1.25 to boot! Now to find a place for this great dish . . . that is the next challenge.

I acquired a bound collection of American Home magazines from 1955. What a treasure trove of home decorating ideas! I’ll be posting some of those pictures in days to come. For now, however, I want to talk about food.

Ever notice that some of the food ideas presented in old magazines just seem plain disgusting? The pictures sometimes look like the aftermath of a messy operation, and the pairings sometimes make your stomach turn. No one will ever convince me that filling pear halves with mayonnaise is a good idea. No one!

I noticed a Campbell’s ad in one of the American Home editions, and a couple of their “creative” soup ideas caught my eye.

Seriously? Who in the world would want soggy popcorn in their cream of chicken soup? I can imagine a husband’s expression when his wife set a bowl of soup and popcorn in front of him. Time to load ol’ Betty into the car and get her to that head doctor.

Honestly, I don’t know which is worse: soup and popcorn, or this idea:

Thanks, mom. You gave me soup for my birthday. Soup from a CAN, no less. What did that take you — five minutes? Oh, sure, you think you can plop some candles on top and it will make it all festive. Betcha didn’t think about what would happen when the melba toast got soggy and the candles fell into the hot soup.

I can only imagine that poor child who received Birthday Soup. He recovered from the vast disappointment, eventually. He watched glumly while his friends’ moms baked birthday cakes at their parties and celebrated the traditional way. He tried to ignore the teasing that came from having a mother who served beef noodle freakin’ soup at his birthday party. Just as the gibes began to die down, however, his mother served this the next time he had a friend at the supper table:

Oh, sure, she tried to dress up what would normally be a drab and rather tasteless meal: asparagus soup. The cheese cut-outs were cute — at first. As Billy watched the cheese slowly melt on the surface of the soup, he began to wonder if there weren’t a voodoo quality to it all. That person looked strangely like . . . dad. And there was his dog, and his cat, and a heart. Wait — whose heart? His? Dad’s? Was it a gentle way of reminding him that Mom loved him, or was it a voodoo wish that Dad would drop dead of a heart attack?

As Billy looked up in confused panic at his mother’s face, he couldn’t help but notice the weird, dreamy smile on her face as she watch the cheese melt into the soup.

As we continue, I can’t help but wonder if these soup ideas weren’t all meant for the same sort of psycho mom. There had to be someone out there who thought these ideas just sounded scrumptious, and so inexpensive to make, too! Won’t the hubby and the kids be so surprised when I set this down in front of them?

They’ll be surprised all right, but not for the reasons you may think, lady. Soup, and raw eggs . . . in a glass! Mmmmm, yummy!

When the soup nog idea runs thin, there’s still another way to horrify the family. Soup on the rocks!

Husband have a drinking problem? Getting tired of watching him swill scotch while sitting in front of the TV all night? Just replace it with boullion. Serve over ice! He’ll never know the difference. Note their encouragement to “have it often.” After serving this more than once, your family will hate you for good. If that’s your goal, then you will have succeeded.

Sometimes I’m lucky enough to find cool retro products just by using the right search terms. Other times, though, I stumble across retro products that seem horribly misplaced. In general, I try to avoid the kitschy retro products that try a little too hard. You know the ones I’m talking about — the rusted signs that say “Mom’s Diner” or a clock styled like a jukebox. On the contrary, I love products that truly look as if they could have come from the 1950s. Some manufacturers are getting a clue that there is an honest demand for this stuff. Let’s encourage them, shall we? Take a look at what I’ve found via Amazon just by searching for the term “retro.” Read the rest of this entry »

I often peruse through my old Sears catalog and wonder: if this were indeed 1953 and I were really ordering things for my house (and my life, since Sears offered everything from boots to boats “back in the day”), what would catch my eye? What items would I be writing down on the order form and sending away to Los Angeles?

The clothing just about does it for me. I could order nearly every single dress I see in the catalog and be in heaven when they arrived. Was there ever a fashion that made women more feminine than the Midcentury dresses? Flouncy and floral, they could make just about anyone look about as girly as Marilyn or Grace (Kelly, that is).

Here are a few gems that caught my eye this afternoon: Read the rest of this entry »