Let's be crafts from the 60's and 70's

I'm the tasteful glass tumbler you can make out of a beer bottle with your K-Tel Bottle Cutter kit.

Sand paper and bandages not included.

I'm any bottle covered with different size pieces of masking tape then covered in shoe polish.

I’m ceramic Christmas trees.

Popsicle sticks! (for Mom)

I am macrame.

R2 That was the first one that I went to after OPs wire dip flowers! I’ll go to the sugared water string placed over a ballon to create Easter eggs.

Summer camp =lanyards

The highly decorative, yet utilitarian, Tis-Sue!

I'm a decoupaged wooden purse.

Resin grapes.....

I’m a Bicentennial latch hook rug kit!

I’m the wood burning kit you got for Christmas in 4th grade. Watch your fingers!!

Don’t forget me!!

I'm crochet queen, making booties for your baby!

For the fine art-minded.....

He-She Jewelry!

This was the go to craft book in the 70s.

Halloween!

Pot Holders

I'm Spirograph! The kids get bored with me real fast!

I'm the crocheted granny square vest!

I'm the ubiquitous poodle toilet roll cover.

I'm Shrinky Dinks! Don't over bake me in the oven or I'll smell up the whole house!

mod terrarium

Only because the points on your gears broke off making them unusable, r20.

That's because we DID get bored with them, R25...so they became ersatz throwing stars.

Along with Lite-Brite pegs, which, thrown onto a freshly waxed wood floor, were perfect for tripping up an overbearing older sibling at 2:53 a.m.

My mom made these from eyeglass lenses. Take graphics from old greeting cards or magazines, etc. Use Mod Podge and little pin backs from the craft store. Make them into pins and sell them at the church Christmas Bazaar.

Does the plastic age well on those, R27.

Elastic love bead choker. Clasp not required.

I'm the Vac-U-Form! I'll make your whole house stink like melted plastic!

Loved those sand art soda bottles that were stretched.

I'm 1970s string art! You'll be proud to hang me in your home!

i would seal ALL my mother's Christmas cards in the 70's

Merry Christmas

I'm the melted crayon candle holder bottle.

I'm the Plaster of Paris mixed at Brownie & Girl Scout meetings, and poured into random molds and left to dry for a week. Unmolded and painted/gold leafed at the following week's meeting, thereby giving the weary troop leaders a twofer covering two weeks worth of crafts time.

Said project later dug out, dusted off, and used for Junior Achievement group project.

I want one in this mold.

I'm a Christmas tree made from a single copy of the Reader's Digest!

OMG this entire thread. However you left out tie-dyeing old T-shirts, and decorating/embroidering your cut-offs.

R32 Beat me to it.

We had psycodelic string and nail pictures on the wall in our house. Very 1970s.

Yes, yes! More, more! This thread is oxygen to me.

Paint by number sets.

I'm the caligraphy kit. You used me once, made a mess, and I was never touched again.

What about me? Am I chopped livah!

DL, Did any of you enter the local County Fair or the 4-H with your fancy table settings, cake decorating, or other imaginative crafts?

What happened to all of these craft projects? Went the way of Camp Fire Girls?

I'm the latch hook rug kit.

But, was the Easy Bake Oven a craft?

Everyone loves sock monkeys!

[quote] But, was the Easy Bake Oven a craft?

Of course it was. Food is just as much a craft as any of the rest listed here.

Those bilious "cakes" were neither craft nor food, r49.

Easy Bake cake-making is not simply a craft; it's an art.

A woman from Sheffield who makes cakes entirely from her Easy Bake Oven won the last season of The Great British Bake-Off. She has been hired by Princess Beatrice to make her wedding cake from over a thousand separate Easy Bake cakes.

Does lite Brite count? If it does I was a fucking Picasso in 3rd grade.

Thanks, r46! I couldn't remember what those were called.

Talk about a soggy bottom, r51!

I'm the macrame plant hanger

Mosaic ashtray kit in a box for $1.39

How many of the above posters use/used their artistic ability in their professions/careers?

Incandescent lightbulb in clay pottery encased in dry rope knots. What could go wrong?

I'm a costume jewelry Christmas tree picture thing

I'm the crayon art scratch

I'm whatever this is made from old Christmas cards

I think you're a Christmas tree ornament, R61.

R38, that is badass

I'm a carved candle from the late 70s, which, from this video, is apparently still going strong. Let's make 'Murica Great Again!

When we are done being crafty we can have some fondue!

I remember making those christmas trees from the readers digest. I just don't remember how.

R64, I am lazier than you, I am a sand castle.

I'm the Livesavers Book. I know I belong in a grab bag gift thread but I couldn't resist coming here. HI EVERYBODY!

[quote]I remember making those christmas trees from the readers digest. I just don't remember how.

I made one. You folded in each page, and then used a paper clip, or something, to attach the front and back covers, and somehow you ended up with that shape at R38. Then you'd paint it green or glue on glitter or add whatever creative touches you liked. When it was finished, you'd present it to your parents as conclusive proof that you were never going to give them grandchildren.

I'm a wreath made out of a few boxes of fan folded plastic baggies knotted around a coat hanger.

OMG I remember the wreath too. Shit life was fun, and ugly, when people did stuff.

I'm "Pack O' Fun" magazine and I've been peddling this crap for decades. I'm still around.

I'm the antique paper with burnt edges. You used tea.

I’m the gravel art mosaic kit. I’m sparkly!

I'm in love with the OP. What a fantastic idea for a thread!

I'm tripping down memory lane. I will send you the bill for my hip replacement(s)

I'm the newspaper cornstalks. Anyone remember that?

Before the Bedazzler...

Lets make Easter eggs.

I’m the copper art. JFK was one of my most popular patterns.

Applehead dolls

Who fucked up my washing machine again with that tye dyed t shirt shit!

I am construction paper. My colors are muted and depressing. I tear at the slightest touch. Kids are forced to use me in most class projects. Gaylings, happily, tended to be conscientious construction paper objectors, and found new worlds in tissue paper artwork.

Do they still teach art in public school? Wish I could have paid one of you to take my art classes for me. Ugh. Could never get above a "C."

I'm the cardboard loom weaving we all had to do in fifth grade art class

Pipe cleaners

I'm beaded flowers!

(Holy shit, that's expensive!)

Lovely embroidered coasters. Gramma got a new hobby y’all!!!

My teachers were fabulous lezzies and homos from "the city". One month we were all making Claes Oldenburg food. The next month it was 3D renaissance portraits in home made egg tempera.

I had the wood burning kit.

I had a candle making kit.

I can't believe nobody has mentioned Creepy Crawlers. So toxic and dangerous

This thread is the balls.

I took the cardboard weaving to new heights.

I'm beaded Christmas ornaments! My kit features Styrofoam balls, ribbon , tiny beads and dozens of sharp pins. Try not to bleed on the satin.

Milk-carton Ice candles!

OH God my house must have been so active in artsy craftsy shit. OK you blew the egg out of the shell. Then you dipped the yard in a mixture of water and starch. You wrapped the yarn around the egg. When it was dry you smashed the egg. Anyone?

I’m God’s eye

I'M STILL DYING the fucking popsicle stick art. Do kids do anything like that these days?

Why on earth would you put an apostrophe in 60s and 70s?

I doubt it R95, unless there’s an app for it, it ain’t happening.

I’ve jumped to present time and I’m a melted crayon painting.

Pin cushions made from soda cans. So intricate!

We're the Aurora Famous Monsters plastic model kits. We were very popular in the '60s. Collect us all!

OMG we used to take oranges and push cloves into them and hang it as an air freshner.

I’m more talented than most. I’m toothpick art.

me and my brothers would always start those model car kits but we'd never finish. They were to complicated and you'd lose interest.

I know you gaylings all wanted these for Christmas. I wish I still had my set.

I’m an empty oatmeal canister. I’ll be put to use somehow.

I managed to finish a couple of car model kits, R103, but only because I had a touch of OCD and couldn't stand the thought of leaving them halfway done, but you're right. They were tedious. I liked the monster kits because they were much easier to assemble.

6-pack rings tote

Even though it means I'm getting old (getting?) threads like these make me so glad i was a kid in the 70s. Kids today, who I feel sorry for, have such a fucked up world.

I’m a latch kit potholder made by the kids, that hideous bane of every kitchen. Sold as kits by every Ben Franklin 5 & Dime and similar stores that preceded the creation of dollar stores. These mini looms produced tons of hideously ugly potholders that can’t be killed by fire.

Did you make God's eyes with popsicle sticks?

The framed photo collage.

R105 My mother used to make Christmas Nutcracker Soldiers out of thee old Quaker Oats containers.

110 posts and nobody mentioned the owls yet?

[quote]me and my brothers would always start those model car kits but we'd never finish. They were to complicated and you'd lose interest.

Riiight, R103. Admit it, y'all was too hopped up on that goddamn AIRPLANE GLUE to figure out which was the door and which was the wheel.

Cars ended up like a fucking [italic]Giant John[/italic] castle reno.

The owls are not what they seem, r113.

My grandma's kids playroom had this box filled with popsicle sticks and instructions on how to build this popsicle stick lamp. The box had a photo of the lamp printed on it. I assume she bought it with the rest of intentions and then thought the kids will like these popsicle sticks.

Don't forget Con-tact paper! We made desk sets with contact paper and a juice can for the pencil cup, a tuna can for paper clips and an ice-cream carton (collected from Baskin Robbins) for the wastepaper basket. That was our Father's Day project in art class.

And for Mother's Day we made recipe card holders, something like these. We had to bring in a plastic cap from an aerosol can, like a hair-spray can. That formed the flower pot, which was filled with plaster of Paris. We painted a stick and a clothes pin green, and glued those together for the card holder. That was stuck in the plaster of Paris. And we glued a construction-paper flower to the stick.

Where do parents today get their Mother's Day and Father's day presents?

Oh yeah, I am my first grade Mother's Day class craft project, wherein a Hav-A-Tampa cigar box and some elbow macaroni became a luxury jewelry box to hold Mama's best costume pieces.

Well, the pieces Mama didn't mind smelling like stale cigar, anyway.

Mama, did you even [italic]appreciate[/italic] how fucking HARD it was to lay hands on a cigar box when your entire family treated smoking products like the Devil's own weed?

DID YOU?????

R119, still aggrieved.

I want those gravel art mosaic picture.

Shoebox dioramas!

I want the Popsicle stick lamp.

Sewing caftans

I remember making a cross out of match sticks at Vacation Bible School one summer. The best part for me was lighting all the matches because I was a little pyro.

Scherenschnitte was very popular in my house in the 70s.

I think that's beautiful, r126.

Did anyone else take old large cans, cover them with felt, glue on beaded designs, to make pencil holders? Decorative name tags right before Christmas to give to charity hospitals?

Do kids today even get large boxes of crayons? Of course I remember really cheap toys like a deck of cards, a 2nd hand store bag of marbles, jump rope & hop-scotch.

R12---I was the Queen of Art Kits as a child and I had that EXACT SAME wood burning kit! I also had the candle making kit below. I did the paint by numbers, glue and yarn projects, potholder looms, macramé, sand art...

I'm knitting a scarf this size only mine is in a solid olive green cable knit.

I had kits but could also just make up shit out of my imagination, using crap from around the houses, attics, garages, grandmas vast fabric and notions stock, craft stores, etc.

I'm the felt church banners made by parishioners. Thanks, Vatican II!

I'll be a "yarn house?!?". This one is actually particularly tasteful.

Eye of God.

(what is the point of these, exactly?)

The fucking thing always unraveled.

Plaster of paris handprint

I'm Santa with a cotton-ball beard.

LOLOLOL did anyone have to make their Halloween costume out of a paper bag?

In First Grade (late ‘60’s), our teacher had each of us sit for a silhouette of our profile.

Bronzing baby shoes.

Macaroni Christmas tree.

R139, In Kindergarten we lay on a huge sheet of butcher paper while a classmate drew a line in crayon around our entire body. Then we colored in our faces & our clothes.

Teachers used to be so kind. I remember in 1st grade we did the handprints. I dropped mine getting off the bus. My teacher found out about it and I was so upset. The next day she made another plaster of paris mess so I could make a 2nd print. THE SAME THING HAPPENED. She made another one for me and the third time my mom picked me up from school.

Indian bead weaving.

Denim/Jeans embroidering

Make your own tampon kit!

[quote]R139 In First Grade (late ‘60’s), our teacher had each of us sit for a silhouette of our profile.

The only classy craft project in this whole freakin’ lineup.

Come on now. Popsicle sticks have a certain je ne sais quoi.

Yeah the silhouette project was pretty neat. A lot of people still have theirs but just think in another 20 to 30 years all of us silhouette people will be dead and our silhouettes will be thrown away. No one will know to whom they belonged.

I'll be Raggedy Ann and Andy. My grandma made several of these dolls.

r101, that works with 1/10th as many cloves. Maybe 1/20th.

r109, they weren't bad if you stuck to two colors, maybe a third as an accent color.

I'm the yarn octopi that my older female cousins made!

Beer can crocheted hats.

r154 Ohhhhhh....I remember those! My Grandma made so many. That and puka shell necklaces

I will forever cherish those memories. So many arts & crafts and stuff to DO or MAKE in your spare time. It's kinda sad these days that most of what we do now is stare at cell phones and iPads all day. There's nothing to show for these hours, days and weeks we spend at it.

For the Mommie Dearest in you, covered clothes hangers.

[quote]LOLOLOL did anyone have to make their Halloween costume out of a paper bag?

Close, R138. I would essentially make cheap homemade versions of those cheap Collegeville Halloween costumes. My parents bought me a mask. and then I would make the "costume" by gluing paper decorations to a plastic dry cleaning bag that I would then stick my head and arms through.

[quote]I'm the yarn octopi that my older female cousins made!

I remember my sister making one of those from a kit she got as a Christmas gift! I had totally forgotten about it and would have gone to my grave without recalling it if it weren't for R153.

I’m Silly Sand!

Paper doll chains although they go way back.

I'm the art pieces made from dyed pasta.

[quote]I'm the newspaper cornstalks. Anyone remember that?

Flibbers! I loved flibbers.

I'm gum wrapper chains. I was quite the fad for a while in the '60s.

No one's mentioned sugar cubes? Fourth-graders in California are very familiar with this project (to this day, I'll bet.)

R163 we put them on the Christmas tree one year.

....

What a lovely idea, R156!

Discipline mixed with love is such a good recipe!

Thanks ever so much and bless you!

[quote]No one's mentioned sugar cubes? Fourth-graders in California are very familiar with this project (to this day, I'll bet.)

At my school, the 4th graders build virtual models of the missions on computers.

I'm intrigued by the apple head dolls. This one looks like Sophia.

Coming from a craft-crazed family, I literally did every single one of these crafts in the 60s and 70s, or had the hideous item that a relative had made. My most faddish grandmother made me bargello belts.

I can't believe how many of these I, or someone else in my family, did. Many of them were done in school. I even remember people doing hook rugs in high school "art" class.

Kids today have no idea the fun they are missing out on. None of it was art, of course, but who knows how much creativity it sparked with people. We could use more creativity in the world.

Here is one we all did in school with construction paper for Christmas tree decorations. I also remember that we did one at home multiple years as an advent count-down chain. We tore off one link every day and it had something to do on it like "wrap presents," or "make cookies," or "go to the school Christmas show," etc. It's bittersweet to remember, actually. (I know...I know.)

[quote]My most faddish grandmother made me bargello belts.

I certainly hope they were Sylvia Sidney bargello belts, R170.

They were, and yet they were still ugly as sin.

I’m Tri-Chem.

You'll need bottle caps, fabric, needle and thread, cardboard, glue, pencil and scissors.

The patron saint of this thread...

That woman could work wonders with dryer lint!

I'm 1970s decoupage, whose themes often expressed vague longings for a vague past.

I was going to say paper flowers. Then I discovered, much to my chagrin, that it is still very much a thing!

DUST. MAGNETS R179

Oh how real those roses seem to be. But they're only imitations, like your imitation love for me.

Get off my coattails bitch.

You seemed so full of sweetness at the start But like a big red rose that's made of paper There isn't any sweetness in your heart

Pop top can art that probably impressed people at Renaissance fairs.

[quote]Get off my coattails bitch. —Marie Osmond

Excuse me, bitch. "Paper Roses" was a top-five hit for me in 1960. Your pallid imitation ("Paper Woses") didn't come along until 1973.

It should've stayed the 70s forever!

The '70s were certainly groovy, R186. But some of the fashions tended to be a little . . . unfortunate.

Mood rings..(I know I know) Chemistry sets...with actual chemicals! Knox Blox.

They had nothing on the Beer Can House, r184.

Oh jeez, I have looked and looked and cannot find an image. Does anyone remember shellacked bread, breadsticks, dried flowers and gingham bows cunningly arranged on small bread boards as decorative kitchen wall hangings? These were such a thing when I was a kid, ubiquitous in my So Cal area.

Girl Scout Day Camp we went on a nature walk and picked up stuff, then poured toxic resin into aluminum pot pie pans and placed the found items into the resin to keep and save forever.

At a Bible Day Camp we made the "Recipe card holders" mentioned above but we stuck a long dowel into the can lid of plaster, mounted a clothes pin on top and painted it to look like a giraffe head and neck. We also glued fabric onto the bottom half of a cut gallon bleach bottle and then threaded yarn through holes in the top of the fabric to create a drawstring container to keep stuff in. I put dominoes in mine.

I tried making apple dolls and the faces got moldy.

Silly sand was a toy rather than a craft. No finished product to save and display = not a craft.

I worked at a shitty craft store in my early 20s. Painting ceramic bisque ware with acrylic paints and spraying it with a glossy sealant was a big business there! They also sold all the part you need for that scary doll head kleenex box cover pictured above.

[quote]I tried making apple dolls and the faces got moldy.

That's what I was wondering when I saw the picture of them. "Wouldn't the faces get moldy and disgusting?" When I was very young, Mr. Potato Head kits came with only the various eyes, noses, etc. that were meant to be stuck into actual potatoes, apples, etc. They weren't packaged with plastic potatoes. Of course, even as a tot, I knew the resultant characters weren't meant to be kept around.

Shadow Boxes

Bottle gardens and other types of terrariums

I'm Doodly Dan, the scarecrow you make yourself. No actual skills required!

This thread brings back long forgotten memories from a happier time, for me anyway. One of the best threads in a long time. Thank you, OP!!

Hey, did everyone forget batik?

Boondogle

My 94yr old grandmother had the white base terrarium from the 70's. She still had it filled with plants and old vintage small knick knacks. I wanted it if anything ever happened but one of my cousins bumped into it and broke it last year. Still pissed, lol.

[quote]In Kindergarten we lay on a huge sheet of butcher paper while a classmate drew a line in crayon around our entire body. Then we colored in our faces & our clothes.

Was your teacher named Horatio Caine? Gil Grissom, perhaps?

r193: Don't forget Sand Art terrariums!

I'm the kit you buy to make Bobby's love beads! So groovy!!! Make them for yourself and all your friends!

I'm imagining the homes decorated with this crap.

Does anybody remember that woman who had her own show where she covered just about everything with foil? It was probably over 40 years ago. You had to buy all the supplies from her. I remember one show where they showed her entry and living room and pretty much everything was covered in foil.

R200, Davy Jones had Love Bead kits too. We had them!

OK this has to be tops. Anyone could do it. Well, probably. The grapefruit bird feeder.

The bleach bottle bird feeder.

This thread is making me homesick. I have to go.

I want a time machine.

r204 Are the birds supposed to eat rocks?

They used to sell all this shit at the Church Bazaar every year near Christmas. When we were young it was one of the highlights of the year for me and my siblings.

Crocheted glucose cozy.

Long after old-school clothespins were superseded by the spring type, they continued to be used for crafts.

And the new-fangled clothespins are also used for crafts.

I love this thread - so many of these arts & crafts I did as a kid. Though the Christmas trees mentioned at the top of this thread are now considered collectors items, so it's not all junk. I used to love macrame & I got a paint by numbers set practically every Christmas.

Because we had one TV with 3 channels, you always had to find ways to entertain yourself (and we lived out in the sticks & never went anywhere), usually by doing whatever was the craft fad of the moment. Its kind of too bad that kids have so much entertainment at their finger tips these days that they don't need to bother with this stuff.

still handy

I know it's not an arts and crafts but we would go through about two coloring books a week. The TV was only about four channels and it would have never entered our parents mind to let us watch more than about an hour a day. Monday night Little House on the Prairie was our must see TV.

Washcloth throw pillows, made from 2 washcloths and yarn. My aunt showed my mother how to make these. One side was a patterned cloth, the other solid.

Soap carving!

I have an old brochure from the National Soap Sculpture Committee. I think it was a post WWII program to spur the purchase of Ivory Soap.

I'm linking to an ebay notice of the brochure. I wish I could find a better link. It almost seemed like Cold War Propaganda that all school children must be carving soap. You would get a free bar of Ivory Soap somehow.

I made a cute California Grizzly Bear out of my bar.

I have made most of these crafts mentioned, and it is a great thread which shows how dramatically the world has changed since the 50's, 60's & '70's.

Rolling your own cigarettes. As I kid I got so good at it I used to roll my father's.

r164, there's a 30-year old styrofoam model of Mission San Rafael in my parents' garage. My mother would not allow sugar cubes because of the persistent ant problem, also very California.

L'eggs eggs crafts!

Magic Rocks!

I wish they still came in eggs!

Does anyone remember a craft involving colored yarn, a board with a picture on it (numbered for different colors), and a stylus with a thin, flat metal tip that poked the yarn into holes in the board? This would have been popular in the mid-sixties but don’t remember the name or brand.

R223, that sounds like latch hooking.

R224, Kind of, but there wasn’t a hook, and used long strands of yarn instead of short ones.

I am the sad little tulips made from egg cartons and pipe cleaners.

[R225] It’s called needle punch embroidery. It’s coming back in fashion. Also some the stuff shown looks in bad taste or dated.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4s8e7Y4q0

I made a punch needle rug out of wool 45 years ago and its held up fabulously, on a floor no less. we made them on special, light burlap and then lined the back with heavy heavy canvas.

Aha! That’s it!

Tole painting.

I love Joyce's various "spontaneous" poses at R222, especially when she sits down at the table.

I'm Tri-Chem. I'm a craft AND a pyramid scheme. You get a discount on your Last Supper Tri-Chem if you have a party. And the markers making you light headed is an added bonus!

I'm a Christmas tree made by folding in the pages of an old magazine.

I'm Erica Wilson, inspiring your mom and her friends to take on embroidery projects that are way over their skill level. Forty years later those half-finished pillows will still be there in a plastic storage bin in the garage, along with her stained glass stuff and the potter's wheel.

I'm cross-stitch, a form of embroidery and yet another needle craft available in kits that promised to be a lot easier to execute than they actually were.

No one has mentioned me! Unbelievable! My grandma made them all the time for church bazaars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sock_monkey

Has anyone ever tried painting like William Alexander - he always used a huge paintbrush and was able to do an entire landscape in half an hour.

[quote]No one has mentioned me! Unbelievable! My grandma made them all the time for church bazaars.

R236 meet r48

r238 Oh, gosh I missed that one!

William Alexander was no Bob Ross.

I am the jewelled fruit for your centrepiece.

R241, That sparkly fruit is mesmerizingly tacky and enthralling. My little self in the 70s would have seen it as the height of domestic glamour.

Both my mother and grandmother had that fruit. My little gay self thought it was the height of sophistication.

I had a neighbor as a young gayling, an older lady already in her 60’s if not 70’s then, Mrs Mace. She had these bejeweled fruit, and like R242 and R243, I thought they were the bees knees! What’s funny though, is I do remember high end stores having their own, similar bejeweled fruit, and given where I grew up, I think that’s where her’s came from. Oddly, that took a bit of the appeal away for little gay me.

I’m the Knit-Wit handcraft unit — no knitting, no crocheting!

Because they stand for 1960s and 1970s, R96.

I had almost all the Aurora monster models. I finished all of them, unlike the woodburning project, the San Francisco earthquake, which I know was in 1906 because it was right there, in the horrifying tableau.

I usually got the models at Christmastime, when the older brothers got the new Beatles album. Sometimes when I hear something from Rubber Soul, I can smell the glue and paint I used. I loved those monsters.

Candles. I remember the interest in colonial times led to hand-dipped candles. Then there were also the regular candles.

Flocking is another craft I remember.

As the '70s progressed, I remember the energy crisis. People were predicting the end of the world. Some turned to homesteading and all that back to the land stuff. Some near us took to using dog hair for spinning into wool, then making sweaters out of it.

Another craft was colonial style metal punching, which I think was mentioned further up the thread. Another colonial craft was candlewicking,

^^ Candlewicking is a type of embroidery.

R246 still incorrect.

The casual way we left to amuse ourselves with razor sharp items, red hot metals and molten plastics and waxes.

And I can't remember ANY horrible accidents.

Children had so much time on their hands. Many housewives, too.

I'm the gold spray-painted punch card wreath the nuns had us make in 4th grade to send to the poor people of Appalachia. Along with toothbrushes and toothpaste.

I had one of these. My dad kept it at his house and I didn't have to hear the incessant noise. The finished product was really shiny and smooth, and I made him a tie tack out of one of the stones. I still kind of miss it.

OMG fruit has drag queens!

In the early 70s, the book Jonathan Livingston Seagull was HUGE. Everyone owned a copy. People thought it was so deep, maaaan.

And I spent most of one winter making this punch-hook rug.

I'm a glass Coke bottle whose neck has been heated and stretched till it's long and skinny. I'm a primo prize at the carnival, with or without layers of colored sand.

I know it's not arts and crafts but nothing says the 70s like a dipping bird.

OOOH, R252, I remember that rock tumbler kit from the picture on the box, a kid I knew had it. They are SO fucking loud!

Easy bake ovens are not always a welcomed gift.

I still love that sand art. I don't care how tacky it is.

Did any of you do quilling where you wrap the little strips of paper around a pin sort of like a hat pin? This one is actually pretty spectacular...in a "crafty" way.

The One-Needle Looper!

r255's photo reminds me of the Zanti Misfits.

Leather burning

Fried Marbles.

R261 I remember that the technique was called "quilling", and I remember being taught it was of Norwegian origin.

R266 That looks nice in a retro-not-tacky way.

Are fried marbles really as sparkly as the photos I just googled?

r184 Had a friend who worked at Chilton when that book was in the works. She had to squire around the author, known as Pop Top Tate, she said he was really odd and her time with him bordered on the surreal.

r172 I have in my, ahem...., craft book collection TWO books by Miss Sidney, one by Broadway legend Miss Mary Martin and another book entitled "Celebrity Needlepoint," which includes such luminaries as: Claire Bloom,DL fave Ann B. Davis, uber DL icon Miss Joan Fontaine, Hermione Gingold, Grace Kelly, Rosie Greer, Dina Merrill, Mary Tyler Moore and some other, lesser, lights.

I remember making Christmas choirboys using the folded magazine technique. They were on the mantel every holiday, and lasted for many years.

The sugar cube craft reference above reminded me of "The Lucy Show" episode wherein she was taking her scout troop to Washington D.C., to present to the president a scale model of the White House made of sugar cubes. She inadvertently placed it on the floor during the train ride, and a door opening and closing several times reduced it to rubble. Cannot remember much of that episode, except there was a frantic rush through the dining car, with Lucy looking for any and all sugar cubes.

I had the Aurora models of Superman and Batman. Had to get a note from my mom to give to the guy at the store where I bought the kits; otherwise, he wouldn't let me purchase the glue needed to construct the models. It was a simpler time.....

No spool crafts? I've got two 5-gallons jugs full of them, leftover from various sewing projects, just waiting for the right project. Any takers?

I found a lot of these crafts tedious and ugly when I was a kid, but I loved making "stained glass" suncatchers.

OMG the "stained glass" kits. That was fancy schmancy. That wasn't everyday crafts. That was look what I got for Christmas crafts.

Has anyone said me yet? A God's Eye.

A particularly amazing thing was in my middle class suburb, on summer holiday, the town paid (sometimes HOT!) college kids to go to the local park every day and do stuff with us, and the arrived in their Beetles with boxes filled with free crafting supplies. Not the fancy shit we had at home but everyone made stuff. And we played games and sports and went on little adventures in the woods and stuff.

Anyone remember plastic bubbles? You put a highly toxic gob of plastic at the end of of a half straw and blow? I loved them but they were really hard to get a nice one going. Borderline arts and crafts I know but nonetheless....

Wasn’t sure if Make It & Bake Its were a 70s craft but I still have all the Disney M&B Christmas ornaments I made as a kid in the 1980s.

RE274 we had them. They were Psychedelic and the fumes probably fried our brains. It was fun to keep a good one and watch it slowly sag over a day or two.

Seems like you could buy most of this crap at Spencer Gifts if you didn’t have the talent to make it.

Not really R277. But yeah people have posted some barely crafty things in this thread. Whatever.

The charm of a craft was that someone actually did it and usually the product was pleasingly "off" in some ways.

I can’t find any clips online, but Captain Kangaroo used to do arts and crafts projects. I would try to do some of them with construction paper but get frustrated when it turned out nothing like whatever it was he (or his art department) showed on TV.

Did any of you make plates with a kit like this? You drew with markers on special paper, mailed it off and they sent you back a melamine plate with your artwork permanently embedded. And they were practically indestructible.

R279 I see your Captain Kangaroo and raise you a Hodgepodge Lodge, making dried flower crafts. I just read that only 30 episodes of 470 exist as they would record over the tape to save money.

I’m a FRAU and I do some of these with my kids. We also do Sharpie tie Dye. It’s therapeutic and even adults enjoy it.

And also you can use foam trays or any plastic with a “6” inside the recycling arrows as shrinky dinks. Color on it with Sharpies and bake it. We had one kid who complained that the fumes were toxic. Little goody two shoes. I told her to go in the other room and sit by the open window if she was worried. Hmmph. Little twerp decided to stay and have fun.

I'm a colored-pencil-by-number kit. I'm somehow less artistically rewarding than a paint-by-number kit.

I have this urge to let my inner child come out this weekend and do some tacky craft project!

Wine bottle drip candles... especially if done with a Chianti bottle in a basket.

Creepy Crawlers!

I am papier-mâché, detailed with string and finished with an antique wash.

I remember my mom and some of her friends had purses / handbags with jeweled rosters on them. Not sure if they were a home craft item but someone was turning them out back then.

[quote]Vintage Mattel Knit Magic Knitting Machine

It made knit tubes you could then transform into hats, stuffed toys etc ... but my sister and I lacked the necessary sticktoitiveness, and just ended up with a lot of ... knit tubes.

My god, but this is ugly ... whatever it is.

that's a fucking masterpiece R290

[quote]R291 that's a fucking masterpiece [R290]

Well, it is your lucky day! You can follow that link to purchase booklet “WEAVING on DRIFTWOOD LOOMS” at Etsy, and make your own!

Just $9.99 !

I wouldn't try to weave that just as I wouldn't try to pain the Mona Lisa.

Getting comparable sticks would be challenging enough...

I MUST have a Giant Floor Ball, r292!

[quote]I wouldn't try to weave that just as I wouldn't try to paint the Mona Lisa.

But, R294, with this kit, anybody can paint the Mona Lisa!

My Sheridan wins prizes for his embroidery. He'd be appalled by all this.

Bean art. My aunt had something like this in her kitchen.

Waxed dripped Chianti bottles were part of (40's) 50's beatnik decor.

The wax-dripped Chianti bottles were also extremely popular in the 60s and 70s. I remember buying the special drip candles for it.

I wouldn't call it a craft, though. You stuck it in the bottle, lit it, and got on with your evening.

Another "craft" we did was sewing lots of fake patches all over our jeans.

This is one of the very best DL threads ever.

This wasn't exactly a 'craft' but was a fun at-home thing to do during the Christmas season.

I used to put those Glass Wax stencils on mirrors and windows as a kid. I would have to take a break occasionally when the smell of petroleum fumes from the Glass Wax made me a bit dizzy.

Rug braiding. This wasn’t widely done but I remember older women doing this during the 1970’s.

My 4th grade class made these with pop bottles but we stuck a short candlestick in them as a Mothers Day gift project. My teacher prepped a work station with piles of cut strips of tissue paper about the size of a business card in every color you could think of neatly arranged in rows and tiny bowls of pink starch for the adhesive. We worked in groups of four or five and I think it might've taken all of 10 minutes to make one.

Rug braiding does not look like tons of fun.

My old yankee relatives used to braid rugs for "fun" before the 60s, so I never saw it as a 60s-70s thing. A piece of furniture I inherited from a grandmother was full of old rug-braiding gear. It doesn't look at all fun, and I think braided rugs are ugly. None of us wanted any of the huge old braided rugs after the elders died. Those rugs were solid wool and sturdy, though, if you like that kind of thing.

I misunderstood the apostrophe-in-the-year issue. I should have referred to the OP, which is incorrect. OP should read "from the '60s and '70s" but that doesn't matter, FUN CRAFTS MATTER.

I remember making "diamonds" with coal, salt and ammonia as a 5th grade class project. Now THAT was fancy.

Those were called Depression gardens.

I feel depressed looking at them.

Cheer up, R310, and have a Pom-Pon Party!

Have we mentioned paper dolls? My all time favorite paper doll artist is Tom Tierney who recently passed away in his mid '80s. I came across his paper dolls of men you might see at the Folsom Fair, but it has been removed from his promoted repertoire. (He deserves a thread of his own.)

McCall's magazine had free Betsy McCall paper dolls every month. God, we were really poor weren't we? Everything was being reused. The fun part was it was cool to be poor in the '70s. I made all my own clothes, and had a patchwork and muslin maxi halter dress that was one of my staple college uniforms.

Bummer, I can’t find a photo of a gold painted cigar box with macaroni on top. It was a “jewelry box” we made for our moms in kindergarten. I was so proud of that box, I thought it was just bee-yoody-full. I think it was the only craft I ever made.

I asked for Lite Brite 3 christmases in a row and didn’t get one. My mother pretended Santa couldn’t give it to us because there were too many pieces that we wouldnt clean up after playing with it, but it was really because we couldn’t afford it. There was a strict budget for Christmas and they stuck to it.

Anyone remember these? I had an aunt by marriage who was a craft fanatic. She grew up middle class. My mother & her siblings grew up destitute, but they thought they’d been brought up just fine, thank you very much and they did NOT have the time or the patience to waste on frippery! Humph!

One year my aunt made pine cone wreaths, pine cone wall hanging Christmas trees and pine cone candle centerpieces. Aunt Carlo put red bows on all her pine cone art, though, not white bows. There was this brief “back to nature, earth tones” period in the early 70s when pine cones & macrame were the shit.

POM POMS! haven't though of those in years. We made those like our lives depended on it. Those bottles! Oh the things you could do with a little cray paper. I haven't thought of cray paper since probably 1979.

Crepe paper?

Cray paper?

Cray-cray paper.

We made soft sculptures in elementary school. You’d get assigned a pile of fabric, kapok stuffing, sewing kit and glue and had to make an object. I made a 5’ long tube of Colgate which I used as a bed lounging pillow for years. I don’t think you’d get away with giving needles and glue to 10 year olds now.

[quote]I asked for Lite Brite 3 christmases in a row and didn’t get one. My mother pretended Santa couldn’t give it to us because there were too many pieces that we wouldnt clean up after playing with it, but it was really because we couldn’t afford it. There was a strict budget for Christmas and they stuck to it.

We had a Lite Brite and trust me when I say you didn't miss much. The main thing I remember about it was stepping on those goddamn pegs - almost as bad as stepping on Legos (which we never got, just the cheap knockoff kind that came in a big tub! And Lincoln Logs, yuck!)

Has no one mentioned string art mandalas yet?

R313, buy yourself Lite-Brite and enjoy. It doesn't matter that you are no longer a child.

Did everyone have a ceramic coffee mug made by their “special” cousin or niece, made in art therapy sheltered workshop? Or a ceramic tea mug with a misshapen tea bag holder made by your boss’s son who just got out of rehab and is thinking of becoming a full time potter? There were A LOT of people in the 70s who thought they were going to become professional potters.

A woman I worked with married a guy who went to art college to become a wooden sign carver. For real. Tried to make a living at it, was resentful that he couldn’t and now he drives a bus talking old people to dr appointments and senior day care.

Warm fuzzies and cold pricklies

R312, my father had his shirts boxed at the cleaners, so we always had plenty of cardboard for projects. The Betsy McCall page was glued to the cardboard before cutting out the dolls

My mother sewed her own clothes, so we also had plenty of scraps to make sock puppets.

I bought this pattern that allowed you to make fruits and vegetables out of fabric. I made 4 peanuts in 2 shells which I quilted myself.

I was always sewing while I watched the Golden Girls with my dad on Saturday night!

A moment of silence, please, for Dan Robbins, the originator of paint-by-numbers kits

[quote]My mother sewed her own clothes, so we also had plenty of scraps to make sock puppets.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table and using my mother's fabric scraps to make costumes for the various puppets that I would use to stage puppet shows, primarily for my own amusement. My mother looked up at the clock one day and said, "You'd better put that stuff away now, your father will be home soon."

"Okay," I said.

For budding artists who didn't paint-by-number was quite classy enough, you could paint-by-number on black velvet.

R329 that’s sweet in a sad way.

It is sad, in a way, but also a warm memory for me now, odd as that may seem. My father was a very cold man. My mother more than made up for it. I miss her very much.

I like the pine cone wreath, R314. Not big on the bow, but hard to go wrong with pine cones, even now.

Pine cones were a mainstay in arts and crafts shit. Sea shells too. OH yeah unpopped popcorn too.

Decal-It

My aunt used to make these.

That's absolutely nuts, r336.

My mom made these for our early American suburban home. Embroidered pictures throughout the house.

Nuts to you, R337.

The pine cone wreaths are still made, I quite like them. Never seen one made of nuts.

That must have been a lot of work, R338.

R338 Mom’s still doing the embroidery thing. She spent the winter cross stitching a quilt. For some reason her tastes still run towards early American. I think Bewitched was or still is her inspiration. These pics went well with the matching plaid recliners. I’m surprised she never made us wear pilgram garbs.

Thanksgiving must have been fun at your house, R342.

The Magic Knitting Machine! Oh God, I wanted one of these so bad but never got one. It looked like so much fun.

My mom used to do a lot of crafts. One of her favorites was (and yes, I looked for an online photo but could not find one) was she took a mini wooden shutter, spray-painted it avocado green, and put stickers on one side of the blinds with people she called often. Then when you flipped the blinds, there was another sticker on the other side with that person's phone number. I remember it was decorated with wooden block letters spelling out her name and ribbons.

Also, does anyone remember Ric Rac? It was used to decorate a myriad of craft projects in the 70s.

R344--Are you kidding? Ric-a-Rac still rules! i used a shit ton of metallic ric-a-rac trim (and pom-poms) on my Mardi Gras garb. On my greatest night at the Muses parade, I got a SHOE and a random gay guy on the street told me I looked like ENDORA! What a triumph!

I'm in Ohio, so although we have pine cone wreaths, we also make buckeye wreaths. Buckeyes are very glossy and pretty. I've also seen wreaths made of sweet gum balls.

That Magic Knitting Machine was the Easy Bake of knitting machines. Brother made huge ones (size of a music keyboard/synth) that could do sweaters/skirts/etc...

I’m “Incredible Edibles”! And “edibles” is stretching the term a bit.

I am a swan made from a wire coat hanger,

Dressing crafty

I'm a reindeer made from an empty coffee can. You can fill me with pencils. Or something.

My mom made these for a school fair. They were a huge hit.

^ they’re pencil toppers made of fun fur.

You can also use fun fur to make your bathrooms cozy and inviting!

Does anyone remember fake birdcages made out of pipe cleaners, net & Styrofoam? I recall seeing them in the bathrooms of elderly relatives & neighbors, circa 1970's. ( I googled them , no luck)

No net or Styrofoam, but here's a pipe cleaner birdcage, R355.

^^The foil pan really makes it . . . ugly.

Do girls sew anymore? All of my sisters sewed and couldn't wait until they were old enough to get their own sewing machines. I've seen them make projects from start to finish. It really was something to see it come together. One of my sisters made a light blue, three piece, bellbottom suit for herself. The she got her required Dorothy Hamill haircut. She used to sing with the folk group at the 6pm Saturday night folk group mass. I used to sit in the first pew and just stare at her. I thought she was so beautiful and that she was a star. She would always blow me a kiss and wave to me.

R356, They were similar to the image you found, except way frothier & frou-frou. This thread made me recall gazing at them in various old ladies "powder rooms" when I was a little boy.

Hershey's Kisses wreath

r347 I have one of those in my garage but I've never used it.

r344 345 the word is RICKRACK.

Gravel mosaics

I made a shitload of collages. It was like the art teacher go to.

embroidery

Spirograph art

R358 Sewing is great!

R362---I'll say it like my Nana, thanks. Ric-a-Rac for life!

We moved into a new house in 1968, and I found a crafty soap fish in the garage. (Also, there were 2 black widow spiders my stepdad killed and pinned to the wall as a warning to others!)

Jello molds

Laminated fantasy art on wood

I'd be interested in making that Jell-O salad at R369, but where I am supposed to find those Martian eyeballs that appear to be staring out from inside it?

^^^ As disgusting as it might sound, I think those are pimento stuffed green olives.

So what are the yellow squares in r369?

They can’t be cheese, can they?

Cutting cheese was very popular in the '60s and '70s, r373!

That Jell-O salad couldn't be more unappetizing-looking. It's like someone vomited into the mold before the gelatin was set.

Pineapple r373? No, pineapple stops jelly setting. Cucumber? Yellow peppers?

Does it look any more appetizing if you imagine all the bits are gummy candies?

[quote]Pineapple [R373]? No, pineapple stops jelly setting.

Only fresh (i.e., uncooked) pineapple has that effect. Canned pineapple doesn't affect Jell-O.

Burnt Match Crosses

^^"For our matchless Christian friends."^^

Jello salads ran it two varieties. The one most people think of, or can at least wrap their minds around are the sweet / dessert types - the simplest being just add canned fruit cocktail to the jello (my mom often made that). There were all sorts of more elaborate variations as well.

The other was savory - and was meant to be eaten as a salad or even an entree. These are the ones that seem truly disgusting in retrospect. They grew out of the fine cuisine tradition of serving meats & vegarables jelled in aspic - jello was an easy mass market way to achieve a more difficult result. Early jello came in non-sweetened flavors like celery and tomato back in the 30’s to accommodate this kind of use.

By the 50’s & 60’s there were all kinds of recepies in woman’s magazines - and I think at that point Lime flavor had taken over as the base since the vegetable flavors were discontinued - but I believe you could still buy jello without the sugar added for stuff like this.

That picture shows a lettuce & tomato garnish, with olives and celery in the mold. The yellow squares could be pepper - but I bet it’s sliced Cracker Barrel cheese - the magazine recipes usually tried to incorporate 2 or 3 brand name products into them for obvious reasons. As a kid I actually liked some of that shit.

Fashioning a shelving unit from stolen dairy crates.

Entertainment center with enough space for 100s of record albums.

You didn't need to sew to fashion all kinds of bandanna halter tops. I had a stash in my room and experimented my little heart out.

Bring back the vegetable JELL-Os!!!

Jello salads with fruit in them were edible, but shredded carrots were always a bad sign. The Jello Mold Mistress of Brooklyn makes beautiful Jello molds, though.

Finding celery in your jello was like finding little bits of hell.

Here's a Jello mold concoctions related thread hint hint.

Bet they’re film/tv people who associate craft with buffet.

Back in the '70s, I was given a kit to make a representation of the Brooklyn Bridge and the NYC skyline that combined nail-and-string art and decoupage. It wasn't this one, though. In the one I made, Miss Liberty had not decided to move to dry land.

I got crafty gifts all the time. One Christmas it was this Ornament Kit that took me the better part of the year to complete. You punched out the die cut wood & sanded; then carefully cut out the image for both sides from printed sheets and decoupaged away. I was meticulous and over 40 years later my parents still hang them on the tree.

It's wonderful they saved the ornaments, R390. Handcrafted ornaments like that have more meaning than store-bought stuff.

My great grandma brought this to a family get together in the late 1990s. I was pretty young but I remember everyone looking at it. It is sliced pickles suspended in green jello.

r302 r303, I used to put food coloring in the Glass Wax and do different colors.

ocean in a bottle

I have always found green food that isn't some sort of vegetable very off-putting, R392, especially if it involves Jell-O.

What a traumatic moment that must have been, R392. Horrifying.

Dig in!

Cruelty to Peeps.

Ew, they look like Shelley in Night of the Hunter.....

I have one of those wood ornaments that my younger cousins made for my mother. The picture glued to it doesn’t fit the wood at all and there is some “embellishment” in the form of scribbled green magic marker on part of the wood not covered by the picture. I hang it up every year along with the yellowed craft ornaments made by my grandmother. Alas, my grandmother always bought the cheapest yarn. An aunt of mine from the other side of the family always used top notch yarn and her snowmen and Santa faces are as white today as they were 40 years ago. She also made a tighter knit than my grandmother did. I guess my grandmother was “saving yarn” by doing a loose knit.

Those wood ornaments at r390 look very sweet. I’d love to have some vintage bits like that.

R401 - they are very Dickensian but with a solidly mid 70’s color palate.

R391 - well they are more “hand assembled” than hand crafted but it is fun to see them every year.

When it came to these fitted plastic slipcovers... Were they homemade? Did one buy them as an add on with the sofa at J.C. Penney, go to an upholstery shop, did you have to know someone? This has always perplexed me.

My mother had plastic slipcovers because we had cats. When we didn’t have cats anymore, she took them off.

We had a neighbor who had plastic slipcovers, it was hysterically funny to under-10s to hear the farting sounds when anyone sat on them.

I made a wallet in Arts & Crafts which was after t-ball for about six weeks every summer. You would make things like the wallet -- bead ring - soap art -- copper impressions etc.

I did also latch hook for a while. I found that relaxing while watching TV, but alas - not a lot of requests for latch hook art these days. The dog would also steal and run around with the yarn packs so there would end up being short pieces of yarn everywhere.

My mom also sewed a lot of her and my sister;s clothes. Some for me and my brother, but not as much. I guess she could not sew tough skins. She did make me a Miami Vice style sport jacket when I was in high school that I thought was great.

R406 probably using supplies from Tandy Leather (yes later of Radio Shack and TRS80 fame).

Black walnut owls, courtesy of my aunts who had tons of material outside their house

R403 - they were custom made - like slipcovers - which is what they basically are, just made of clear vinyl. They came to the house & measured your furniture. I guess you could get them at the time you bought the couch, but I think it was usually an aftermarket thing.

For middle class people furniture was much more expensive, relatively speaking, back then compared to today - so slipcovers and reupholstery were very common. Upholstery shops and some deptartment stores would advertise “shop at home service” for plastic or fabric covers on TV all the time.

My mom got a sectional in 66, had it slipcovered in 73 and reupholstered in 82. She replaced it with new stuff around 96, but when those wore out 5 years ago she just got new ones again - the economics of purchases like that have completely changed over the last 50 years.

Pasta in shadow boxes? Paused at R111 to write this

Easily DL Fave Top 20 thread induction. Cakewalk, OP. You treasure, you!

Talkin' classic thread, here. Major player circa Middle Class Pasta Straining thread while on a week long bender on Center Island w/no staff in sight.

I know these things

[quote]For middle class people furniture was much more expensive, relatively speaking, back then compared to today - so slipcovers and reupholstery were very common. Upholstery shops and some deptartment stores would advertise “shop at home service” for plastic or fabric covers on TV all the time.

Yes - we had custom made slip covers as well. Most of my grandparents furniture was reupholstered and originally the 40's. A lot of it was in pretty good shape frame/spring wise until the 90's. Furniture was definitely made to last longer.

My parents were middle class, but looking back at their pictures from early in their marriage in the early sixties and even to some extent when I was little in the early 70's, they did not have the instant fully furnished house with expensive furniture. A combo of simpler pieces, hand-me -down furniture and not having everything. Either furniture was that much more expensive, or people did not spend as much on their house or try to get everything at once.

DoodleArt anyone? I had a poster-sized one of the zodiac that took months to do, and then I was dumb enough to go purchase another one *sigh* that 2nd one took forever.

♡ R192

This was the other thing I remember about summer arts & crafts. Between this and the "Indian" bead rings and bracelets the girls would make, there was a strong Native American influence in pop culture a the time, Big Chief tablets, the crying man in the pollution commercial etc.

R274, yes! Looks like he's smoking crack!

Not really a craft, but filling bottles with colored water and putting the bottles in the window.

Fake stained glass. The kit had heavy, lead-like goop and the sections were painted with clear paint that dried. It looked like stained glass when done. Anyone else remember this one?

[quote] but with a solidly mid 70’s color palate.

Oh, dear.

I had the create a superhero/villain set R104

I guess this wouldn't count as a craft.

I'm an acrylic yarn, multi colored afghan... to cover cold stinky feet, when watching TV. I'm machine washable, too...easy, peasy. You can see my cousin on The Connors sofa back.

I'm an elaborate, macrame plant hanger... to hold a potted Spider Plant.

I'm a paint by numbers painting... lovingly depicting one of Keane's big eyed girls.

Reindeer

I wonder if anyone bothered to build a wild collection of these crafts. It would be something to see altogether. An ethnography of the two decades in craft.

I just remember A LOT of crocheting.

My partner’s mother crocheted her wedding dress. It actually looks really nice. It’s very, very intricate and all done in embroidery silks rather than wool. She wanted a full length but settled for knee length when she realised how long it was going to take.

The crochet with embroidery silk was something I remember my great-grandmother doing in the '60s. She had been a doily-making maniac for decades. The fashionable thing your partner's mother did was popular then, turning an old-lady doily craft into a mod dress craft.

Thanks r429, I didn’t know that. It really is a lovely piece of work.

I am those notched popsicle sticks that are supposed to fit together like Lincoln Logs but don't, and you can't use me to build ANYTHING!

Yes R418! Hours of fun, years of dreadful window ornaments your mother didn’t choose

What a lovely thread. My contribution: Ribbon barrettes that were the rage in elementary school. You weren't cool unless you had some. I know Xanadu came out in '80, but it was made in '78 or '79.