THE WEEKEND COLLECTOR: Me! (Part 2)

I promised I'd come back and post more of my house & where I keep my various collections- here is part two, my upstairs. I don't keep collections everywhere, but I do have two main areas upstairs where I keep things.  The first is our upstairs landing- it's a very large open area at the top of our stairs, and I have 6 bookshelves full of books and goodies.  [Sadly, my Nikon camera died 2 days ago, so I used my iPhone camera to take these photos... they aren't the finest quality, especially indoors, but they will have to do for now!]
I'll start by sharing the photos of each of these shelves & treasures, then go to area #2.

My first shelf is full of children's books of all kinds- old and newer, classics and obscure. It's really hard for me to get rid of anything!

These are mostly classics- including Little Golden Books, Laura Ingells Wilder, etc.

Next is a vintage Ethan Allen set of shelves and desk/ cupboard units. I keep all of my LDS Church books. The left side is mostly modern ones, the right side has a lot of old, historical church books.

This desk belonged to my husband Bruce as a child. I keep it stocked with vintage school supplies and my Dick and Jane readers.

More vintage school readers & work books.

The plaque is a copy of an article about me in Playthings Magazine,  October 2004, featuring my school book collection.

This tall shelf includes school arithmetic, science, readers, music, art, geography, and social studies books.

Children's reference books, history, geography and vintage magazines.

In addition to my schoolbooks and accessories, I have school photos of Bruce's grandfather, and my Mom's high school graduation photo.

Next, we go into my studio. You can see all of the various treasures I have there.

As a toy designer, I have many toy reference books: books about dolls, games, toys, and also books about pop culture, collecting, travel, and reference- plus lots of dolls and toys on display.

I also have a variety of stuffed animals & other critters.

Here are my robots...

.... and my pedal cars and some of my kaleidoscopes.

This shelf has a couple of the toys I've designed, and a photo of me with a Cabbage Patch Kid I designed when I worked at Mattel.

An old Lifesavers display rack holds games, boxes, and a plethora of stuffed dogs and critters.

THE WEEKEND COLLECTOR: Two Crazy Crafters

This weekend's collector blog is mother/ daughter craftswomen/ collectors Twyla (Mom) and Lindsay (daugher) of Two Crazy Crafters. These two talented ladies share a blog and a love of all things vintage. Daughter Lindsay loves collecting, and creating lovely cards, and digial layouts using vintage finds and retro scrapbook graphics and embellishments.  Mom Twyla is a master of the thrift store and flea market, and she is also a painter and crochet-er. Both take turns blogging, shopping, sharing, and creating.

Vintage inspired cigar box decorated by Lindsay

Lovely crochet work by Twyla

I thought you would enjoy seeing just a few photos I found on their blog. I hope you stop by and read more about these talented ladies. Maybe you can even find some photos of the creative studio they have decorated, and where they work together.

COLLECTION #12: Television Game Show Games

Decades before 'Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?', and even 'Wheel of Fortune', radio and television began hosting game shows. Starting in the late '30s, 'quiz shows' were extremely popular with listeners of all ages. The transition to television in the late '40s and early '50s was a natural. In our family in the 50s, favorite quiz shows were 'What's My Line', 'Password', and 'Concentration'.



I have a small collection of television game show games from the '50s. It's fun to see the clean and colorful mid-century graphics, and look at the fun game pieces... these weren't board games, but often had some sort of game-show gizmo that replicated the real television game board.

I'm particularly fond of Tic Tac Dough... nearly 30 years after the television show premiered, I was a contestant on this show myself! Very happy memories.

I'd love to hear about your favorite tv game or quiz shows!