Middle Aged Memories
Comments
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Elimar....don't remember the name of it....but I can just about picture it in my head (not the name, the braider thingy)....
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Renee, I asked my mother what a piece of S*** was (A neighbor boy said it), and I got the bar of soap. That must be what caused my cancer!
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Since no one knows, we'll have to call it Mystery Braid-maker. It actually made a yarn rope that was hollow in the center. I think I made a yarn belt once...didn't have to be too ambitious, back then, to make the length to fit around a ten-year-old's waistline.
Did anyone make latch-hook rugs? That had the nylon/plastic backing that the yarn latched on to. I had something else that I liked even more...it was a hand-held yarn punch that could be used on stretched burlap to make a loop rug. I made one with sunflowers that lasted over 20 years.
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I remember making dolls by stringing rolls of lifesavers together. I think a big marshmellow was the head and everything held together with yarn.
Candle making kits. Macrame. I always wanted a spirodot.
I remember in grade six finding out what the word f*ck meant. I told my Mom -- that she and Dad f-ed 4 times (4 kids). I didn't get in trouble though...
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Applehead dolls.
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Konakat: I am LMAO reading your comment about the F word. Hilarious!
I made latch hook rugs and pillows. Also macrame plant holders.
Never had the bar of soap treatment, but my mother gave us St. Joseph Children's aspirin for every little ache or pain. That must be what caused my cancer. That, or the Aspergum.
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OMG.....I made macrame until my fingers bled. Now that one brings back memories.
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I latch hooked pillow, rugs, wall hangings. Those 3" pieces of yarn were everywhere in my bedroom!
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I also has a punch needle, but it was sized for embroidery thread, so I used it in my embroidery.
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Macrame!!!! lol My bf and I used to macrame plant hangers, etc., too! As a matter of fact when I go to visit her this summer we're going to macrame again! We were just talking about it before Christmas! Too funny....
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Latch hook rugs! Yes! My Dad got into latch hook, believe it or not. I have a racoon that he latch hooked and Mom stuffed that I got for Christmas one year.
I remember "Spool Knitting", I think we called the gizmo a Knitting Nancy or a Knitting Knobby:
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Yes, "spool knitting" brought up a lot of online info., plus a lot of fancy-schmancy-Nancys.
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The directions to get started were on there, if I ever hunt up my old "knitting spools."
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I was just thinking of those things as I read about the wool braiding. My Grandmother made me one from an actual spool and nails She gave me some pale blue yarn/wool and a needle with a hook on it. Because the spool was so narrow, there wasn't a hollow middle, I had yards and yard of the pale blue "garden snake" type thing. My grandmother also crochets really cute stylized dogs and octopus with stryafoam dballs somehow wrapped in the wool for the head. She was a very neat lady !
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Elizabeth - I remember loving my spirograph...and also feeling jealous that my big brother's drawings always came out so much nicer than my own. (PS He still is more artistic)
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Oh I loved my Spirograph! I put those designs all over my (homemade) book covers! Remember making book covers out of brown paper bags?? And taking your lunch in a paper bag? No fancy lunch boxes for us--mom wouldn't spend the money. Sometimes when we ran out of paper lunch bags, my mother would put my lunch in a used plastic bread bag! Oh, the humiliation and shame. hehehe
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Light Bright.......
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I loved Lite Brite. I really thought I was an artist. After all, i was able to create a picture with pegs and a light bulb! lol!
My mother belonged to a craft club. A little craft project would come thru the mail and she would put it together. The only one I remember is a little wheel barrel that had fake flowers in it. When I was young, she had plastic fruit. She stuck a straight pin in a color coordinated bead and then attatched it to the fruit.
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Can you beleive they let us make ash trays for our parents in grade school?
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I still have my Spirograph. I had one favorite wheel #52 I think. I used it almost exclusively.
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ReneeS: When I was a little girl (less than 10), I used to go into the drug store and buy cigars and pipe tobacco for my dad for Christmas and no one said a word!
I remember the beaded fruit...my mom made some. Do you recall making wreaths at school out of colored tissue paper wound around a wire coat hanger?
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yep....and how about tissue paper flowers ? for my older sister's sweet 16, money was tight so my Dad let her paint the garage pink and decorate it with hundreds of pink tissue paper flowers.
as for ash trays, wasn't it just recently that kindergarteners stopped making ashtrays from hand prints...or was it longer ago than it seems ?
Didn't like Lite Bright though cause we had to use a new black piece of paper every time. Not certain if I was a young conservationist or just too inept at art to want to go thru that much paper but looking back, I was a an odd child.
How about paper macheing balloons then popping them when everything dried and being left with a sphere of paper mache ? What were we supposed to do with them ?
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MTG, what a great post. When you say tissue paper flowers, did you mean the ones made from "Kleenex"? We covered a homecoming float with those one time. We made thousands.
My parents never smoked, but I know my sister and brother both made ashtrays for them. I had different teachers so mine must not have been pro-ashtray.
I never had a light bright, but had one for my kids. They weren't into it very much. I probably played with it more than they did.
The paper mache balloons took forever to dry. or so it seemed. We made "Easter Eggs" out of ours. Since we we impatient, they had flat sides from taking them down before they were completely dried.
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The ex and I lived in PA many years ago and we couldn't find a pinata for our sons birthday. I took a punching pall and covered it in newspaper strips soaked in flour and water. I added cardboard ears and painted it to look like Mickey Mouse. It took days, in the oven, to dry and a whole lot of candy and peanuts to fill! When it came time to break it open, it took one of the older kids to beat the crap out of it because the walls were so thick. Good times!
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Ha-Ha, I made a homemade clown head pinata once. Same thing, only I think the string attachment finally gave out.
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I remember paper mache on balloons, only we made baskets--cover half the balloon completely, add a handle and let it dry. The most fun was popping the balloon when the "basket" was ready. We didi for them for Easter and May Day, I think.
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We made baskets, too, only we used string dipped in liquid starch. Anyone else make the sugar eggs for Easter with the scenes inside them?
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I remember the starch string baskets!
My son made me a suga egg one time, but I have never attempted it.
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We used to get burnt out light bulbs and wrap newsprint dipped in the flour and water mixture. When they dried we'd smash them on the floor to break the bulb, paint them and then have, not castanets, but those things that you'd shake to music...
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Remember blowing the inside of an egg out through a pin sized hole? Talk about sore cheeks.
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Maracas?
I loved to empty eggs that way!
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