The Last Bend on the Bobsleigh Run

Girls lived such exciting lives in the 1950s!  This picture is the opening page of the School Friend Annual of 1953 and flicking through the book, I immediately fell for the characters and settings for the stories in there.  No fashion or makeup tips to be seen.  No celebrities, boy bands or suchlike but a wholesome collection of girls and young women overcoming adversity, having adventures and mostly being jolly good sports.  When I was nine or ten, I loved my comics and readily identified with the girls in the stories, even if Beverley Road Junior School was more likely to hold a sack race in Pearson Park than a bobsleigh race in Switzerland.

Bearing in mind that these annuals were often around at Christmas time – mine usually came in my stocking and had been read by breakfast time,  this feature on drawing from The Bunty  annual of 1969 was probably a popular one.  But the language is so different!  Great to see that girls were not “talked down to” – the advice in the feature about drawing figures is detailed and comprehensive – but oh my, what do you make of “drinking iced concoctions at a cafe table” ?  Did we really write like that in 1969?

 

Oh, and in case we were having too much fun drawing and reading about our favourite characters, the Bunty Book for Girls included one or two more worthy features, including

 

But for the most, the stories were of young women we might aspire to become.  People like Jane Comfort, the student teacher and Tina Roberts, who  worked for the Gold Seal Agency, testing products before they went on sale to the public, who had a riotous time testing roller skates on an elephant.  Dora Dexter, who ran a delivery service in a little market town and Wendy Brown who had “a wonderful job as Junior Air Hostess with Elmbank Airlines, flying all over the world and helping to take care of children travelling on the company’s luxury planes”! 

I love how anything is possible, how girls were given all kinds of dreams and opportunities. I consider myself so lucky because parents brought me up to believe that I could do anything if I worked hard, regardless of my gender. Reading these books I can see that reflected in the games and stories we read.  To be a girl in the 1960s was full of possibility, it seems.

But we were very good, weren’t we?  One striking characteristic is that good always wins over naughty and kindness conquers all in The Bunty.  Tell the truth, be kind to animals and always do your best for your dreams to come true and a happy ending all round.

Even Pepita, the poor Flamenco dancer who will never dance again following an horrific car accident, finds a way through.  Phew…it was touch and go at times, I can tell you.

So why am I suddenly muttering on about the Bunty?  Well, thanks to my good friend Fanny I’ve got a handful of old annuals here to take for our road-trip pal, Mary, for whom the concept of the girls’ comic is unknown.  Quite what she will make of them, who knows?  All I can say is that I’ve had a jolly good time reading them myself!  Maybe, too, I’ll keep one back, to give to my small friend and see what she makes of it…

What’s Darth Maul doing in the carrots?

Answer: he’s the only figure I could find.

(see here, here and here)

I promise to try harder next time.

Holiday weekend

It’s raining.  Not really enough to soak the garden, which would be good, but enough to make us think that spending this Bank Holiday Weekend at home a good idea. 

We began the weekend in style, with friends at Lumiere, our favourite local restaurant.  These “Tequila Slammers” went down wonderfully – there’s tequila sorbet in the glass, a salt shard in the middle and a lime sphere in front.  The sphere needs to be eaten in one go and popped in the mouth rather than nibbled and it was interesting to see who was gung-ho about doing that and who was, like me, slightly anxious!  No need for anxiety, though – the burst of sweetly sharp lime was spot on and completed the experience beautifully!

Saturday and Sunday were days for fiddling about in my studio, remaking the book and trying to make some sense of the first one.  The postman brought a new addition to my shelves in the middle of all the fiddle – another distraction!

But in between the fiddling, there was some testing to be done.  A group of our friends are tackling the Three Peaks Challenge in August, in aid of the National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society and I’ve taken on the role of chief cook and bottlewasher!  They’re going to need a variety of nutritious and energy-packed snacks as well as a couple of fairly substantial meals so I’m auditioning one or two new ideas including these Crispy Ginger Slices.  They’re a light shortbread base with a ginger variation on Kendal Mint Cake on top – totally yummy and if I can work out a gluten-free version, will be a winner.

 

The good thing about being home all weekend is that the papers have been read and thoroughly digested, giving me plenty of things to consider whilst fiddling about with paper and glue.  I mean, do places really have to be dangerous to be interesting enough to read about?  And I thought long and hard about my opinion on this but resisted the urge to share it in 140 characters.

Best of all, I had time to watch the tulips open

and to make enough of Gordon Ramsay’s Chicken Biryani that there was enough to look forward to for lunch today as well.

Making it better

I decided to have another go at the book yesterday.  There were so many good ideas in the project, I didn’t want to leave it in thin air, unfinished and unloved.  Instead of printing out a whole heap of papers, I fished out a pack of Basic Grey “Euphoria”, complete with sticker set and cut it to US Letter size as in the original instructions.

The result was heaps better.  Eagle eyed WI Craft Judges will spot blobs of excess glue which, they’ll be pleased to note, I have now removed using my nifty glue eraser!  I left the tabs blank, though did for about ten seconds, consider putting the paper through my printer before coming to my senses and thinking better of it!

I made the file folder to fit in the pocket created between two pages, hard to see in the midst of all that patterned paper in there, but it works well and is a useful addition.  That in particular is something I’ll incorporate into other projects.

The spinner fits and works well.  Adds a bit of interactive fun to this kind of book  but I think I need to think carefully about the page content to make sure it’s not just there for the sake of it.

Once it was finished, I couldn’t leave well alone and simply had to cut that shape out.  I put a new blade on my scalpel (why don’t I do that more often?!) and cut through all the layers at once.  Far better, smoother curves and more successful all round.  I’m happier with that.

Not quite how I hoped

Remember this from earlier this year?

I really enjoyed the Mouse Paper Scissors online workshop and without much thought, signed up for the extension “Mouse Paper Scissors Mom”.  Admittedly, our Mothering Sunday had been and gone, and sadly I no longer have my Mum around to cherish.  But still, I thought I’d enjoy working through the workshops and creating a kind of tribute to her perhaps, and learning a few new tricks along the way.

I downloaded the materials and printed the papers out – a lovely selection of soft colours and pretty patterns.  But here, I made my first stumble.  As in the earlier class, all the papers were formatted to US Letter size and only after I’d printed and taken a second look through the files, did I spot the A4 versions.  Duh.

I especially like the idea of asymmetrical pages – working with a ratio of 6:4 left an opportunity to do something on the smaller side, to embellish the edge with tags, frills or whatever.  That’s clever and something I must remember to add to my repertoire!

But here, the A4 paper didn’t quite fit the plan.  Were I to cut the page with the frame to 4”, then it would look a bit odd…the US Letter size paper had the frame located differently on the page, so this wouldn’t happen.  Of course, by the time I’d worked this one out, it was too late to do much about it.  I left that page the full 6”, which is a shame because it contains a tabbed pocket which doesn’t really show up.

I liked the spinner idea too…that small page allowed room to insert a circle of card held in place by a small brad.  That’s another feature I’ll use again, I’m sure.

I’ve finished the structure of the basic book and planned to use today to finish the thing off completely.  But as I took it out of the folder and set to work, my heart sank rather.  I’m really not happy with it and think that perhaps, I’ll start again.

For a start, look at that cover.  My copy of Book Three of Proust’s “A la Retour de Temps Perdu” is missing a few more pages (not that anyone will ever find that out, I’m sure!) and though the frill is a pretty idea, painted with the Chandelier Glam, it’s really messy and the few sparkly stones don’t really do much for it!

Though the pages were cut from the same pattern and I tried very hard indeed to cut them accurately, they don’t really match up.  For sure, there were warnings about the shape being asymmetrical and advice to mark the pattern template with “TOP” and an arrow, which I followed.  But for some reason, it still didn’t really work.

And although I can hide some inaccuracies with a bit of stamping ink and sandpaper, some horrible bits just can’t be resolved at all.

So, I’m a bit disappointed in this one. 

I do, however, have a sheet of the most glorious butterflies, printed first onto card and then onto an acetate sheet so they can be layered together.  I think that means it’s worth starting another book all over again and hoping that, next time, with the knowledge and experience gained on this first prototype model, I might achieve a more satisfactory outcome.

(you’d never believe I worked in Education, would you?  ;-)