Canisters, Sifters and Bakelite

Isn't this the most irresistible 1950s image? 1950s Mom is showing us the apple pie she has made with the help of her Androck Sifter! And Sonny can hardly wait to get a taste. Love the red and white check linoleum floor, the yellow formica counter, and the coolest kitchen decor ever! There is also a decorative matchbox holder and dispenser next to the sifter, to light the pilot light on your new gas stove!
Decals! I remember them so well, specially the teddy-bear decal that Mom put on the back of my wooden highchair! Do you remember decals? These lovely California Poppies bring color, life, and a hint of the garden into the kitchen. The plastic handles are a neat touch, but inhibit being able to stack the canisters!
Bakelite Bakelite, I love Bakelite. I have been in love with it since becoming acquainted with Grandma Edith's old red Bakelite set in the kitchen at the Bitner Ranch in Park City, Utah. I would put a teaspoon of Postum into an old mug with that cute little spoon and stir in the Sego Evaporated Milk and two or three teaspoons of sugar. Yum! Then I would sit on a chair next to the warm wood-burning stove and watch the traffic speed by on Highway 80. The ceramic jar holding the utensils in the photo above is a Tulips grease drippings jar, part of the ever-present "Range Set" found on shelf above the stove, or on the stove counter. There would be the Salt, Pepper, Flour, and Sugar shakers as well. Moms and Grandmas did a lot of seasoning and tasting at the stove. The little leafy green and yellow ceramic is a Measuring Spoon Holder, with 4 slots for the Tablespoon, Teaspoon, and 1/2 and 1/4 Teaspoons. Every kitchen had one!
The heavy glass jar holding utensils below is called a Spooner. You can see the Tulip salt shaker that matches the grease drippings jar above. The red poppy canisters were made to be "go-alongs" with the Hall Red Poppy Dinnerware Sets. You will glean a ton of expertise on Hall's Red Poppy by reading this link from Country Home Magazine:

http://www.countryhome.com/collecting/letsgoantiquing/lgasep2006_1.html

Don't you just love the world wide web? You can find information on anything and everything!

More Red and White!

Note two more shelf price signs from the old general store days! I love the sugar canister with the red Bakelite knob. On the far left is a Safeway Foods premium, a folder of needles for the homemaker! The aluminum shaker says Ovaltine on the lid...put in your Ovaltine and shake it up! The next glass is a "Gravy Mixer for Lumpless Gravies and Milk Sauces"! Don't you just love it! The last jar with its red lid and wood handle and chopper handle is by Anchor Hocking (AH on the bottom). The coffee mug perched atop the canister is a red gingham pattern made by Federal Glass.

Red and White Delight! Colorful Fire King and Griffith's Spice Rack

I have been collecting Fire King glassware for several years now and I love this Sunrise Swirl Creamer and Sugar and the little fruit dish holding the faux cookies! There is a dinner plate behind the wooden rack of Griffith's Spices. Here is a link that is interesting about Griffith's Spice jars (http://www.griffithlaboratories.com/United_States/en-US/about_us/History/Spice+Jars/) I purchased mine at a close out of an antique store as a full set. I later found 2 with the green lids. Apparently the wood racks were manufactured during WW II due to the need for plastics, so mine was created during that time. Post war plastics made bright plastic racks for these safe, sterile, and hygienic white jars. You might be interested to know that the cute "19 cents" sign is one of several dozen that I purchased first from Sandy Antique Mall (http://sandyantiquemall.com/Sandy_Antique_Mall/Welcome.html) and then later found some more at Star Mill Antiques in American Fork, UT. (http://www.millpictures.com/mills/details.cfm?millid=1298) The signs are designed to slide onto the grocer's shelves . They are so fun to scatter around among my collectibles!

Vintage Decorative Laundry Detergent Dispensers 1930s-1950s and Other Vintage Soap Stuff

Not real sure why most of these dispensers were made of wood...they got splashed with water, bluing, starch, bleach and who knows what else? It did give them a great shabby chic appearance though. I love the little wood knobs on the top that lift the lids up to add the detergent into the box as well as shake it out into the wash tub. Do you remember the ironing day sprinkler? This one is a bottle painted red with cute Mexican motif decal around it. Did you know that liquid bluing whitens fabric with a dye called "Prussian Blue", which is a chemical named ferric hexanocyanoferrate?

Linit is a laundry starch and there are various bar soaps, P&G, Ivory, Fels-Naptha, Bon-Ami. There's also a red and white shaving brush with a shaving mug from Old Spice, and a round bar of shaving soap in the bottom for grand-dad to lather up!

In the cubbies below are Boraxo, Sani-Flush, Bel-Dine, Bon-Ami and other notable soaps and cleansers of a by-gone era....however some are still on the scene today. Note that laundry soap dispenser on the right is a metal one with a really nice design.

Electricity and Reddy Kilowatt: Is cooking with Electricity Safe and Fast????

This little lightning bolt fellow, Reddy Kilowatt, was a spokesman for the electricity industry for over 60 years. Here he is speeding down a rollercoaster, probably the ride at either Lagoon or Saltair in Utah, to show us how fast cooking with electricity can be. OK, I think it had a lot more significance in the 1950s than it does now...Microwave ovens were not an option then.
Here's and ad with Reddy dressed like a policeman to emphasize that if you do indeed like to be "Safe", then you'll like Electric Cooking--why??? Because it is Completely Safe!
Not only is electric cooking automatic, it is "almost" like having a servant, except that it is more reliable than servants.....
Here's Reddy dressed as a cowboy in hat and boots and lasso and I don't quite get the gist of this ad at all, but I think the stove is very cool!

Collection of Vintage Kitchen Housekeeping Toys

For several years I have been collecting Wolverine tin lithographed "housekeeping toys" which were made from the 1930s to the 1950s. They were made in a number of scale sizes. They hearken back to an age when kitchen toys looked just like your Mom's real versions did and were toys with which little girls played house and became familiar with the "tools of the trade" of housekeeping. These are difficult to come across at yard sales here in Salt Lake City, so I search for them online. You might enjoy searching for them yourself!. My grandchildren ask for me to get them down to play with, and we enjoy having tea parties and cooking and baking "pretend" cookies or soup. I didn't have these toys as a child but always wished for them.

Close-up details on the cupboard door. I love these retro magnets!

I love these Pyrex Bowl magnets. The "polka-dot homemaker" and her matching kitchen are suffering the side effects of the Pyrex "Primary Colors Bowls"! I found the salt and pepper shakers in Lehi, Utah at "The Nook & Cranny". They fit the curved spice holder that is on each door. I have 2 "Griffith's Spices" bottles on the other door.