Better Living Magazine - September 1951, Featuring McCall's Sewing Patterns

Every have one of those things you've been searching for, a small little insignificant thing that is in no way truly important yet still compels you to keep searching for it?  Well this magazine was one of those items for me.  I've known of its existence pretty much since the beginning.  It appeared in a magazine index (remember those) at my local library in which it listed the article "Straight from Alice in Wonderland," which of course intrigued me.  But I could never locate an issue.  Until now.

Thirty years in the making have brought you this post.  This magazine was new in 1951, this being only issue #5, which probably helps explain my difficulty in finding it.  In the periodical publishing/distribution world, issues are ordered three months in advance.  So a retailer in this case would have ordered issues 1-3 before ever actually receiving an issue.  By the time issue #4 was ready to be ordered, they would have received and been selling issue #1, this influencing their orders for #4 and so on.  Thus, if sales of the first issues was not up to expectations, they would most likely reduce their order.  This being issue #5, sales for #s 1 and 2 would have been available, and order adjusted accordingly.  Now, as I said, I knew of this magazines existence, but I had never seen ANY issue in the wild until eBay came along, but never this issue.

One thing going for this issue is the cover, featuring Luana Patten from Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart.  Always good to have a cute kid movie star on the cover of your new and not original women's magazine in the 1950s.

Table of contents lists pretty standard fare, of course with the object of my search on page 48.  Note also the thumbnail photo of the cover with Luana in the upper left.

And at last we've reached the object of my years long search, a two page sponsored article by McCall's featuring a cute little girl dressed in the Alice clothes from the sewing pattern posted here.  I like the photo on the right with her playing with the Peter Puppet Mad Hatter marionette as posted here.  I must say in that photo on the left our little Alice has definitely had enough for the day.  Note also the single line of text below the photo that says "WHERE TO FIND IT page 80."

Where to find it is just that, it lists where to get the patterns, and includes a handy order form to order them directly from Better Living.  It also includes where to get the Mad Hatter marionette.

So, thirty years later, was it worth the wait?  Probably not.  But I am glad to have it.

Happy Halloween!

Or as I prefer to say, Happy Birthday to me!  That's right, today is not only Halloween, but also my birthday.  And what better way to celebrate both than with cool Alice Halloween garments!  Over the years there have been not one, but two Alice themed Halloween scrub tops!  The medical industry gets all the cool clothes.

What's great about these, is that you can generally find them on eBay for pretty cheap, and you can either wear them as is, or in my case, have them made into cool Hawaiian shirts!  Happy Birthday indeed!

Fruit of the Loom Child's Sock Set

How cool is it that this package of little girl's socks has survived intact since 1951?  Fruit of the Loom Guaranteed Socks featuring Alice in Wonderland designs in the package!

And the cellophane is still there too!  I have an ad for these socks somewhere, I'll post it when I come across it again, but these are in fact licensed and from the initial release.

Parents magazine September 1951

Thanks to Jerry Beck over at Cartoon Research for alerting me to the existence of this magazine, although it did take me nearly 5 years to locate a complete copy of it.  The September issue is a trove of Alice content, both large and small.

First up is a tiny tiny blurb for Alice in the Family Movie Guide section.

Apparently it is an excellent film for adults and youths but children need some preparation.  And it is a Parents' Magazine Family Medal Award film to boot!

Next up is an ad for an Alice school bag.

While not the Disney bags we saw back in this post, it nevertheless exhibits a phenomenon that still occurs today:  third party merchandising.  Seemingly for every Disney movie ever released, there is a slew of other merchandise that is NOT Disney, but riding the publicity wave caused by the Disney film.  In this case, other Alice merchandise not licensed by Disney but still Alice themed.  One of the problems with filming stories in the public domain.

Next up is this great ad for Children's Digest magazine, which I blogged about way back in the first year of the blog, nearly six years ago!  Wow, has it been that long?

And finally another great ad, this time for Alice in Wonderland themed children's clothing.

Togs like toys for girls and boys.  What a great tag line.  And this ad solved a mystery that had eluded me for nearly 20 years.  It mentions picture buttons.  I have one of these, but have never been able to figure out from where it came.  Now I know!

Disneyland Alice in Wonderland Gloves by Wells Lamont

I know when I was a kid the only souvenirs I wanted when I went to Disneyland were gloves.  Nothing like gloves in bright and sunny southern California.

These gloves are particularly cool as they have a very nice illustration of Alice on each one.  Made by Wells Lamont of Chicago, I do imagine that for those kids visiting from colder climes these would indeed be a cool souvenir to take back home with you.

This particular example is very nice in that it has its original tag with price (49¢).  Wells Lamont held a license for gloves for 11 years (1958-1968), so it would be pretty tough to nail down exactly from when these come, but the style of the Disney copyright says late 1950s to early 1960s to me.

Bates Disneyland Fabric - Alice in Wonderland in Blue

Ok, so yesterday I said I assumed this fabric was available in store.  It was.  And this is a piece of it in blue.  I've not yet found a piece in pink.  I really like the mushroom background pattern.  All of the characters are a little crudely rendered, but what do you expect for cotton fabric from so long ago?  No selvedge on this piece, so I don't know what, if anything, this pattern was called other than Alice in Wonderland.

As luck would have it, I also have a homemade item using this fabric - a doll's apron or pinafore.  I love finding stuff like this.

DFC Disneyana Expo Preview - Day 4

Ok, you had to know I would be bringing these, so satisfy your own personal vinyl desires with a Daughter and Doll apron set.  In a wide variety of colors.

Kent Feedsack - Homemade Items

Since the entire purpose of these printed feedsacks was to enable homemakers to sew clothes or other items from them, let's take a look at some!

This is a baby blanket made with not one but two full feedsacks, and one of each pattern.  Interesting that they chose the yellow and green colors, guess this was a shower gift and they chose non-traditional gender colors.

This looks like a smock or dress or pinafore for a very young girl, no more than 18 months I would guess.  It laces up the back.

This is an apron, probably made for a little girl to help her mother with the chores.

And this is another apron, could be for a girl or Mom, but is in very good shape, doesn't look like it was every used.

I love stuff like this, things that were actually used as they were designed.  I have a few other items like this, but they appear to be small tablecloths or perhaps basket liners and as such just look like a big square, so not the interesting to photograph.

2013 Year in Review

This year was a sporadic one for the blog, but we covered some interesting topics.  The majority of the year was spent on animation art, in particular animation drawings. I even tried my hand at a little animation myself :-)

We also looked at a variety of Italian movie posters

A new Zaccagnini discovery

Some David Hall storyboards

A few cels

And who could forget the Vinyl Aprons!

A variety of trading cards from around the world

Some really cool dolls

And some early attraction tickets

And last but not least, some really big leaves!

I wish every one of my faithful readers a safe and prosperous new year.  See you in 2014!

Raincoat by Elrene Mfg Co

Next up is this child's raincoat.

As with all the others, I'm quite sure that this came in all four colors, I have this in both pink and yellow.

The raincoat consists of two pieces, an undercoat that is sleeveless, with a hooded cape that covers the base.

On the two examples here it is clear that the manufacturer made sure that the back had a nice clear image well centered.  Here's hope to find the blue and white variations.

Baby Bib by Elrene Mfg Co

As I alluded to previously, there are more variations of Flexton material, it follows that along with daughter and doll aprons, there would be baby bibs.  This baby bib is the only one I've come across, and even this I've never actually seen in real life.

This is one of those heartbreaking stories about packages gone missing.  I bought this on eBay in 2002, but it never arrived.  These scans from the listing are all I have of it.  Perhaps one day another will turn up.