Inspiring Illustrations

Today's Inspiring Illustrations just may be some of my favorites!! The book they come from is called Animal Stories and was pusblished in 1944. The beautiful illustrations were done by (according to the book cover..) Rojankovsky. After doing a little research I found out that his whole name is Feodor Stepanovich Rojankovsky. He was born in Russia in 1891. Rojankovsky was educated at the Moscow Fine Arts Academy and served in the Russian Army during WWI. In 1941, he moved to the US and began his illustrating career. He illustrated more than a hundred books, most having to do with animals and/or nature. Rojankovsky also wrote books -an example being The Great Big Animal Book, published in 1952. He was awarded the 1956 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in the book Frog Went A-Courtin'.

As you can probably tell from the above photo, The book is falling apart. I plan on framing some of the pages and using others for some possible collages or other art projects.

This one is my fav!!! (above)

** I hope you've been enjoying the 'Inspiring Illustrations' feature!! What books inspire you???

Wheezy Wednesday

The photos I am sharing today were taken last week on a trip to the Veterinarian's Office. My poor Wheez had a bit of an infection :( BUT she is all better now and back to her crazy bully self :)
I enjoying taking her out because she always gets tons of attention and she just LOVES it. She always acts so well behaved.... I just wish she always acted that way at home!! ;)

Me and my sweet girl. She thought she heard the Doc coming... :)

Makin' Memories!

So the BF and I have been dating for well over a year now (swoon and school girl giggles <3) and I have been keeping all of the movie stubs, mini golf score cards, road trip receipts, etc... in a pile in my bedroom all this time. I kept telling myself that I would put together a scrapbook of all our mementos but alas, being the professional procrastinator that I am, this never happened. Finally I decided that for now a nice memory box would do! In my recent thrifting adventures I came across this cool, industrial cash box. I had planned on putting it in the shop but another look made me realize it would be perfect as our memory box!



It already had the lovely, old yellowed paper in the front so I just added our initials to it.

I then just started piling in all of our mementos and keepsakes!

I taped some of the smaller pieces to the lid. The far left is the paint chip color that we painted the bathroom. Our first 'home project' together. I also have some of our fortunes up there, as well as a business card from a mini golf place we went to on a family trip to Florida and the visitors badge to the Eastman House we visited while in Rochester.

Maybe one day I will organize it all into a scrapbook and include our photos but for now I am loving our industrial chic memory holder! :)

Inspiring Illustrations

For this week's Inspiring Illustrations I choose pictures from the Little Golden Book, The Happy Little Whale! My copy is from 1960 and according to the front cover was only $0.25 back then!



The book is about a little whale who was captured at sea and taken to an aquarium. She was very sad at first but then by the end she was very happy to be there (trying to make it sound like capturing wild animals out of their natural habitats is ok, are we? ).... While I find the book is a bit off the mark with today's animal rights standards (it WAS published in 1960), I really enjoy the illustrations!

Don't you just LOVE the bunting in the above picture?? The illustrations were done by Tibor Gergely. Gergely was born in Budapest in 1900. He was a mischeivious boy who would get in trouble at school for always sketching cartoons of his teachers, normally on the blackboard when they would leave the room. He would always carry around a sketchbook and his family thought he would grow up to be an engineer.
His desire to become an artist was reinforced when he was nineteen. He happened
to pass some paintings by Goya and Cezanne leaning against a fence in
Bulyovszky Street in Budapest and he knew he was to be an artist. Which he WAS - living in Budapest and Vienna for a time with his wife, artist Anna Lesznai. He illustrated books and magazines.

In 1939 Gergely and Lesznai immigrated to America when it became clear that the German annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia would extend to Hungary. They remained in America for the rest of their lives.
Gergely’s career as an American illustrator began shortly after arriving in New York when he met Georges Duplaix, head of production at Artists and Writers Guild. In 1940 they collaborated on Topsy Turvy Circus and The Merry Shipwreck was published the following year.
In 1942, when Duplaix became head of the new Graphics Department at Simon and Schuster, he introduced Gergely to Lucille Ogle, the author who was instrumental in creating Golden Books. She became his editor for many years and he soon became one of the most beloved Golden Book illustrators. Over the course of his illustrious career, Tibor Gergely created iconic images for more than seventy Little Golden Books.





This book is Ms. Batista approved!!

** I found out a lot about Tibor Gergely at his official website

Thrilling Thrift Finds!

This past Saturday morning I was out on my usual thrifting adventures with my mama. Since it is winter here in Western PA, there aren't as many garage or estate sales going on so pickins are slim this time of year! :) We walked into an estate sale and on the first floor I had kind of already written it off as not that great of a sale. BUT THEN I walked upstairs into a room filled with shoes, purses, and clothing!! There were more shoes than anything and as you can see I walked away with quite a few pairs! Watch for them all in my Etsy Shop soon!

** This is going to be another one of my weekly features - Thrilling Thrift Finds!

I plan on sharing more of the amazing vintage items I find more often here!

Inspiring Illustrations

One of my goals for 2012 (see previous post) is to really spend more time on my blog, building it up, redesigning it, making it prettier and generally making it more a part of my everyday.

I plan on adding one or two weekly 'features'. I have a couple ideas that I am excited about and THIS (Yes! THIS POST! ;) ) is the first!! It is called Inspiring Illustrations and weekly (or at least pretty frequently) I plan on sharing some beautiful artwork from my vintage children's book collection and learning more about the artist.

I have been collecting vintage children's books for close to 3 years now and have amassed quite the collection! I am just so drawn to the illustrations and how beautiful most are. I had started collecting them (mostly books that had some damage to them) so that I could use them in projects, collages, etc... and it just became an obsession! I will have to share a photo of my collection sometime soon.... ANYWAY.. My first choice of books to share with you is BIRDS by Brian Wildsmith.

The pictures in this book are gorgeous. Each one illustrates a group of birds and a collective term for them - an unkindness of ravens, a colony of penguins, etc... The illustrations are just full of color and curiosity. Birds was published in 1967.

Brian Wildsmith was born in Yorkshire, England in 1930. He grew up in a small mining town that was always gray and colorless. He commented once that he always had to use his imagination and draw in his head. He has deservedly earned a reputation as one of the greatest living children’s illustrators. In 1962, he published his first children’s book, ABC, for which he was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal which is Britain’s equivalent to the Caldecott Medal.

He has also illustrated many other books including The Owl and the Woodpecker, The Little Wood Duck along with many other animal books. You can bet I will be looking for more of his books when I am out thrifting!!

Welcome 2012!!

Happy 2012, everyone!! There is always something so exciting and fresh about a new year! Have you made a resolution.... have you been sticking to it so far?

This year I decided to write down my MAJOR goals for the year instead of thinking of resolutions.

I started a fresh new journal (doesn't a fresh new journal just make you giddy!?) and also a notebook where I wrote down all my MAJOR goals for the year. These goals include (without going into detail) improvements to my finances, health, spirituality and of COURSE my blog & vintage shops!

I have found in the past that I normally get very overwhelmed at looking at the 'Big Picture' of these goals and normally don't get too far with them or am disappointed with my lack of improvement. I think most of the time I get overwhelmed with fear and doubt and just kind of quit. So THIS YEAR in my fresh new notebook (not to be confused with the fresh, lovely journal... ;)) I decided that I would write down my MAJOR goals on just about every page and each week I would just think of one or two simple, 'bite sized' things to do to advance that goal...So for health I am working on drinking 8 glasses of water a day for the week and for Hollie Would Vintage I am setting the attainable goal of posting 3 new things in the shop.

Each week I plan on writing out the bite size goals in the notebook and hopefully by the end of 2012 I will have made great progress!! I plan on 2012 being my BEST YEAR EVER ;)

What are your 'goals' for 2012 and how do you plan on keeping up with them??