vintage textiles book covers

at the schools where i work we have loads of awesome resources and books. here's some pamphlets & reference books with ace covers :)

new old books

This weekend we went to one of my fave 2nd hand spots, a house-clearance yard in croydon. originally looking for some furniture, nothing was quite right so we had a trawl through the books instead. they have probably the best selection of vintage books you have ever seen! (and they price things by eying up the armful you bring up to the cash-desk!)

above: 1960 card trick book
above: 1952 penguin handbook
above: Nurses' exercise book from 1965. i found this so intriguing- the content is all like the below image; annotated pictures for different types of equipment setups. Many of them are pretty gross which probably arent used anymore!! (i'll leave it to your imagination!)

More books

Just a few more lovely book covers. Mum and dad were having a clear out and offered them to me before they went to the charity shop
Above: 1966 Guinness World Record book. I was really hoping it would be full of awesome colour plates of mad stuff, but its just chocka block with tiny writing and facts- lol. Cool cover design tho.
Below: My recorder book from when I was a kid! It's a handmedown from a family friend. Published 1950

Penguin book of Kites- 1976. Love everything about this- even the unusual square format.
Below: mad ~Canals Book~ from 1975! Who knows why my parents had this little treasure!
Lastly, here's some pretty flowers

The Formal Exercises of Karate

Found this little gem in our local charity shop. The official manual of the Japan Karate Association! printed 1973. I'm obsessed and fascinated with the use of limited colour in print. Black and orange are used to great effect in the instructions, using photographs, illustrations and arrows.

"Ki-ai!"

half term

I haven't written a blog in almost a month-- and i wonder why my stats are slow?? haha idiot. busy stuff at the moment.

i've been taking loads of photos recently- only problem is, they're all on a roll from my diana mini, 70-odd photos from the past month waiting to be processed!

above: lovely little vintage tin bought for me by my colleague.

Bank holiday weekend was spent visiting out friend in Bristol. first time I've ever been and it was lovely! Will write more about our weekend when i get my stupid photos developed-- but here's two nice little book purchases. Daniel bought Frontier of the Unknown for himself as a holiday book- the tagline "a novel of the men of the future working in a nuclear plant" sounds exciting, but the blurb on the back less so! I was really impressed with the lovely overlapping handdrawn futuristic dial panels, though. and the typography!



Tales of the Greek Heroes- bought this comprehensive book to help us with our weekly pub quiz (always an inevitable question about Greek myths!) and got a double whammy with this lovely illustrated cover. The colouring is great, and each chapter has a nice line drawing header, too.


Below is a little snippet of the elements in our wedding invites ive now completed. Theyre at the printers as I write!

Had a wander around our local area to a very nice pub and the nearby churchyard and fields. Discovered we have hidden alottments in our town! we poked our heads in and saw a rabbit nibbling on someone's lettuces... poor gardeners! I liked the handpainted sign in the communal hut.

Lastly I picked some daisies from our walk.


Must hurry up and get my photos developed!

Sunday snippet

quick sunday update on a few bits!
below: finally finished the illustrations for my website- screenshot below
(etsy and folksy shops)
below: beautiful vintage pinny that my colleague gave me for a late birthday present! everyone at work is so lovely :)
finally, below: vintage type drawer. i've always wanted one because my auntie had a really big one filled with so many lovely eccentric things. we're slowing filling ours up. it's in the bedroom, which is quite a calm, blank canvas (lots of white and wood!) -other than this piece :)

Red and Black

Was gonna upload a couple of these pics, but realised I had a few more combos of red and black to add to them :)

Above: Snippets from Le Silifer magazine, I assume from 1968 from the dates in the mag. it's about architecture but can't find anything about the publication online.
Above: 1967 instruction book from my Spirograph set.
Above: A projector lamp box from 1977 (found in a stock cupboard in the science department at school)
The Studio art magazine cover from 1951

It's all about limited colour and half tone!

Jaqueline Jones

I teamed up with my future sister-in-law to make some banners for mummy-daniel. she has opened a sweet folksy shop here, selling hostess aprons and other nostalgic items. I digitally coloured the line drawings by louise, and added the font (from dafont.com).

below is a lovely cath kidson esque apron.

p.s. she does requests, too :)

and recent acquisitions

I recently took part in Pikaland's Pikapackage (find out more here!) and received a lovely selection of the other contributor's work this week :) yay!
Cool book about magnetism from 1968
Cool embossed french textbook from 1969

Corners & Contrasts

found this funky pamphlet in the school i work in. it was reprinted in 1994 but have no idea of the original printing. i love the limited colour, montage-d cutout photos and line drawings. also i find it hilarious that there is a whole pamphlet and map for children to visit the wrought iron ~serifs~ in London! fun!

Fabulous vintage kitchenware D & I recieved for Christmas from his mama.
Below are: handpainted crockpot and handpainted serving dish from Poole pottery. No idea of the date of these items, though :(


We also recieved this superduper breadbin, and to top it all off, a breadmaker! I'm a doorstep convert- normal sandwiches made from thin slices of shopbread will not suffice!
- i assume the breadbin is from the 60's-70's, thanks to that awesome font and the funky emerald paintjob- inside the bin is painted white.
More of our kitchen (and boring ol' life!) here: Living flickr set

found a goldmine of lovely old magazines at school recently. mostly from the 1950's, many in pieces, but many in excellent condition. love this charming image found lurking at the back of a torn magazine destined for the recycling bin:


MORE HERE

they don't make them like they used to

Books in my parent's bookcase