Thrifty Acres - sort-of vintage crafts

Hello! Older craft kits and supplies will often show up at thrift stores, and this past week was no exception when I made a quick stop at our local Salvation Army.


By "sort-of vintage" in this post's title, I mean crafts which are old enough to be interesting - but really aren't super old. For instance, check out one example below:

These are Meyercord brand decals; I paid 99c for the set of three. These are probably from the 70's. The photos on the backs of the packages show the decals placed on bottles, trays, candles, glass jars, high chairs and on and on. "Easy to remove with Magic Decal Remover" - in case one is tired of looking at a particular decal, I suppose. Do I have a use in mind? Yes, I do - as the packages also show rocks with decals on them, I will try that. It'll be a lot quicker than the flower painting on a rock I did awhile back!


The next set of crafts are older:

The two Advance brand Barbie doll clothes patterns are dated 1961. I couldn't find a date for the Simplicity doll clothes pattern but I think it's from around the same time. I paid 99c apiece for each pattern, which I didn't think was too bad for something like this that's already 50 years old. I don't know if the pattern sets are complete, as all have been cut, but I took a chance on them anyway, as I like the look of the vintage styles. 


Will I try sewing these? Perhaps. The one and only time I tried sewing Barbie doll clothes, it nearly drove me to drink! I found the small scale of the pieces difficult to work with, but maybe I'll give these a try. The Advance patterns appear to be written for the beginning sewer, so maybe there's hope for me (I'm more or less just a step or two up from the beginner level!)

These patterns were in a large box of many patterns of the same era, which of course I dug through just to see what was in there. I noted doll clothes patterns for other types of dolls, but as I wasn't familiar with the dolls mentioned, I passed these up. But there were patterns for women as well, and I studied these with interest. Very elegant clothes indeed! One dress pattern looked easy and I thought it'd be cool to make a vintage-style garment, but unfortunately it wasn't in my size.

But my finds show again that you never know what the result of a thrift store visit will be!