My good friend Joyce came to visit the other day. She arrived with a little paper bag filled with goodies, one for each of my boys and one for me. Inside mine I found some vintage treasures. The calendar is a reproduction of a vintage trade card for Niagara Spray Starch. These color lithographs, popular in the late 1880’s, were a major form of advertising for products of the time. Also in my bag was a beautiful aqua-colored organza and velvet floral hair comb which I am contemplating turning into a lapel pin. Finally I discovered two bouquets of vintage paper millinery flowers, forget-me-nots, in beautiful shades of pink and aqua. I’m not sure just what I will do with these (maybe another lapel pin) but they did bring back memories from my childhood. When I was little I used to watch (and sometimes help) my mother create tray favors for patients at Sibley hospital (where, 40 years later, my first son was born). These classic retro favors were made from the plastic lids taken from aerosol spray cans (particularly hairspray). Do you remember when those lids used to have a small circular wall in the interior of the cap? That little indentation was filled with some form of putty and then flowers such as these were inserted to mimic tiny little floral arrangements. Patients at the hospital had their food trays brightened with these little blooms.
Treasures like this are available through many online sources. Tinsel Trading Company has a wonderful selection of vintage and contemporary flowers, many dating from the 1940’s as well as fabulous trims, embellishments, beads and buttons. If you ever have the chance of visiting the store in NYC don’t miss it – it is a wonderland. Closer to my home is Accessories of Old located in Bethesda, MD. This store is packed with vintage embellishments of all sorts, most dating from the 1920’s. No doubt you will find some treasures of your very own at these shops.
Julie Bowersett