The snail is right up there with the owl and poodle as animal kingdom icons of Atomic Age Kitsch. In the 1950s, snails popped up as vases, plates, tabletops, ashtrays, purses, swimming pools, anything and everything that could be pounded into the instantly recognizable shape.
This 12″ x 9″ x 2″ ashtray is a classic baby pink with little smoke gray bevels and gold cigarette rests. I always thought this was the perfect model for a swimming pool and jacuzzi as there’s room for lounge furniture around the edge of the pool, the jacuzzi’s poolsize and the center where everything snail meets would make a perfect bar accessible to swimmers and spa-ers alike.
There’s no manufacturers mark anywhere but the ashtray’s stone cold up-from-the-sea 1950s. it lives outside as snails should on my 1960’s mint green fiberglass table with matching chairs.
It never moves an inch because it weighs as much as a whale. Literally, it’s the heaviest ashtray I own.
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Categories:
Animals,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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I’m still incredibly bleary-eyed from my month’s buildup to my Sound Of Soul extravaganza Monday night, the recuperation after from which I still feel numb not to mention running back and forth to The Pantages to see the final ever performances of my musical, The Color Purple, as originally conceived before it closes on Sunday and jumps to another tier of performance when the second national tour begins in a couple weeks. Honestly, I’d rather be lying in bed watching TV, my favorite sport, then running myself ragged like I was 16. But I’ve never been the type to do the former and I seem to eternally be the type to act the latter so at least it makes me smile when my drinkware matches my state of mind.
Categories:
Bar accessory,
Drink,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Party,
The Color Purple
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I can’t think of anything Coke would go better with than a nice slab of liverwurst! Not sure what inspired anyone at the company to pick this meal combo to advertise the drink but I’m awfully glad they did because this 8″ x 24″ Litho cardboard sign has hung happily in my kitchen for almost 20 years. I’ve never done it the honor of munching down liverwurst when I pop the cap on a Coke but the sign inspired me enough that my alter ego, Bubbles the artist, painted a beautiful still life of the meal in 1999…
Categories:
Advertising/ Promotion,
Bubbles the artist,
Crafts,
Drink,
Food,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day,
Sign
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Corn is a popular motif in salt and pepper shakers but usually it’s the stalks of corn themselves. Here we have a happy corn couple, born of ceramic, ready to shake at human request. Despite the fact that most salt shakers have more holes than their pepper mates, this 3″ green textured guy and gal’s holes are as perfectly matched as their outfits. They were both born around 1950.
Categories:
Food,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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The owl is a national bird of the state of Kitsch. This is a set of four textured ceramic wood coffee cups with a happy owl peeping out. I don’t usually like the bark effect in ceramic but I love these cups because the owls are so happy.
Categories:
Animals,
Drink,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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A simple but elegant gold ‘B‘ adorns this simple shortie white ceramic vase. Because of their classic vintage aura, I don’t discriminate against initial adorned artifacts despite the fact that the ‘B‘ has nothing to do with Allee or Willis. I keep it in the Bathroom where it looks Beautiful and holds hairBands, toothBrushes and other health and Beauty Bounty.
Categories:
Accessories,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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I don’t know much about Buckskin Bill other than his last name was Black and he had a TV show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana that began every episode with the greeting “Chickama Scouts!”. He was famous for saying things like “Remember, you’re never completely dressed until you put on a smile.”. For whatever else he did, Buckskin Bill certainly knew how to make a good-looking coffee mug, this particular one manufactured by Esco in Japan.
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Famous,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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Featuring two sides, one to toast the year about to end and the other to toast the new year once it arrives, these glasses were made to usher in the new millennium in 2000. I don’t usually collect glassware this new but these are so odd and New Yearsish as to become Kitsch.
Categories:
Drink,
Furniture and Housewares,
Holidays,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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Completely oversized for the two light switches it’s designed to decorate, this textured fake wood plastic switch plate adorned many a wall in the 1970s, with any luck a wood paneled or flocked wallpaper covered one for optimum viewing pleasure. Light switches are usually designed to be only slightly larger than the hole in the wall they’re meant to cover but this Andre The Giant of one stretches to 7″ to accommodate a flower pot sprouting a completely overgrown freak of nature sunflower plant with multiple blooms.
Categories:
Accessories,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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Plastic chef kitchen aids were all the rage in the 1950’s. Most popular among the S&P’s, note pad holders and mixing spoon hangers were these double spoon Jolly Chef spoon rests. In the postwar leisure class spending fury that modernized kitchens all over the world no one wanted their Eggplant Parmesan, Beef Stroganoff or Campbell’s Tomato Soup dripping on their new Okeefe & Merritt so the population of these little guys exploded. Of course, many a noxious fume mixed with the cooking smells as spoon rest after spoon rest melted from sitting too close to a burner. So finding one of these in mint condition is a fantastic gastronomical find. This guy has a scarred lip from a tragic spaghetti accident.
Categories:
Accessories,
Furniture and Housewares,
Kitsch,
Kitsch O' The Day
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