Its 1966! - And Girls Just Want to Have Fun

This was undoubtedly my favourite 'Girls' annual.  It was given to me as a Christmas present in 1965.  I would have been 6 years old at the time and I can remember this annual giving me years of enjoyment.

In an age when there was no TV (S Africa only got TV for the first time in 1975), no personal computers or Internet and no gaming consoles, annuals like these were a major source of entertainment.  For me they had everything - below are just some of my personal highlights . . .

Famous celebrities with humorous captions. . .

Sweet things to make . . .

Craft ideas - I can remember being intrigued by quite a few of these and may have attempted some  

Cliff was the main heartthrob! - appearing in a pantomime of Aladdin . . . 

Of course the Beatles were there too . . . 

And most importantly for me a ballet feature (The Nutcracker) . . .

There was even a ballet related story (this was the one I poured over the most) . . . 

Other stories galore - many of them had a horsey theme . . .

Not all the stories were in comic book form although many appear to have been illustrated by the same artist.  If anyone would like to see the full story of the two I have featured leave me a comment and I'll include them in another post.

See the full story in Dream House (posted 4 Sept 2012)

The full contents page -

What more could a young girl in the Swinging 60's ask for?

  

Sunday Story - The Lady and the Dragon

I didn't have time to put together the post I was  intending to publish this week, so instead I thought I'd include another quick 'Sunday Story'.  This is an other personal favourite of mine.  I often mix up the work of Nadir Quinto and Jose Ortiz but I think these illustrations are the work of Nadir Quinto (please correct me if I'm wrong about this!)

This illustration was originally included in a post called Delightful Dragons (bizarrely enough I've just noticed I published it exactly a year ago today - 12 August 2011 - a pure coincidence!)

The title illustration appeared on the cover of the magazine, the story is inside.  I think it is quite clever having a picture like this that takes place some time after the events of the actual story

This story appeared in 'Once Upon a Time' children's magazine.
Issue #63 published 25th April 1970.

Follow Up to Last Week's Aristocrats(?) / Gay Purr-ee

Last week I posted a set of punch-out / stand up figures that can be seen here.  I was uncertain what the set represented, mainly because I was missing an important element - the cover!  I was amazed at the response I received to the post and would like to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who left a comment and/or helped me solve the mystery.

I now know that the set comes from a movie called 'Gay Purr-ee'.  It was released in 1962 and featured the voice talent of Judy Garland in her only animated film role.  This Wikipedia entry fills in all the other details for anyone who would like more info on the film.

    

The cover picture was emailed to me by Sally in Australia.  It was originally given to her by Bobe who lives in the Ozark Mountains in the USA.  I had no direct contact with Bobe but she very kindly agreed to my using the scan of the cover to round off my original post.

I had never heard of Gay Purr-ee before and would have been too young to see the film in 1962 when it was released.  I think the distributors (it was produced by United Productions of America and released by Warner Bros.) must have spotted an opportunity when Disney brought out the Aristocrats in 1970.  There are many similarities between the two - besides both being set in Paris near the turn of the 20th century, the two lead characters are extremely similar. I wouldn't imagine I was told the set was the Aristocrats, but I think I inadvertently confused the two together, especially as this book was given to me (brand new) in 1970.

I'd like to dedicate this post to everyone who contributed comments, suggestions and information in the original post. The best way I can think of doing so is to link back to all your blogs:

Retha at Paper Dolls and Toys

Corissia at 2BeAPaperDoll

Donna at Believe in Yourself

Darlene at Darlene Foster's Blog

Barbara at March House Books Blog

Roger at Three Hoodies Save the World

Diane at Always Crave Cute

Also thanks to Nora for the lovely comment and Sally for all the emails - I don't have blogs for either of you but wanted to include you in the list.

(Thanks also Retha for the link to your group - I will definitely be visiting soon!)

There are times when blogging can be such a rewarding experience and realising there are such great people out there has (for me) been one of the highlights!

        

Guinevere Paper Doll - Velvet Burgundy (Season 5)

Queen  Guinevere - from the BBC production of Merlin  

One of the advantages of bloggiing is that you can break all your own rules and be spontaneous if the feeling takes you. When I first decided to make a Morgana paper doll I decided to give her 6 dresses and leave it at that.  Then I thought I would follow on with Gwen and make about the same number, ending with her coronation gown.  I was also supposed to make Gwen's dresses in order but even though I still have 3 earlier ones planned, I couldn't resist jumping ahead and making this one!

Angel Coulby as Guinevere

I partly based my new Queen Guinevere doll on this photograph of Angel Coulby.  I think she looks lovely.  The gown is sophisticated but she still looks innocent and very pretty.

Usually Guinevere is my least favourite character in the Arthurian Cycle.  She tends to come across as vain and shallow and completely unworthy of Arthur.  Angel Coulby is different - she makes the character far more sympathetic and likeable and I've thoroughly enjoyed the series as a result..

The photograph is (I think) a little bit different to the others I based the earlier doll on and I'm not too sure about the result I've finished up with here.  Portraiture is not one of my strong points - luckily for me neither Angel Coulby or anyone associated with the show are likely to see my efforts!











The doll is not the best I've made either.  I'm afraid I rushed through her a little bit to get to the dress . . . .

Guinevere - Queen of Camelot

And what a dress!  I don't think I've ever seen a colour that is so gorgeous or a dress so flattering.  Its just as well that I am not a teenager anymore.  I would be designing a new wedding for myself based around this dress (I wrote about my tendency to do this in my Sulamith Wulfing post.)  As an aside - red would not have been a strange colour for a wedding.  I think I've mentioned before that the Victorians introduced the concept of the white wedding (for purity).  Prior to that brides never wore the colour and centuries before the traditional shade was red with its connotations of fertility.  (For that reason I decided to dress my character Saraid in red for her marriage to Rowallan in the book I'm trying to write.  (So much to do, so little time!))

With all the other dresses I've made my scanner has reproduced them fairly accurately with regard to colour.  This one unfortunately did not come out as well.  The colours of the original are far more vibrant than anything I can reproduce - it must be the rich dark shades.  As a result I've included two scans - the first is the result after I have 'auto corrected' the image in Microsoft Picture Manager.  The second is the original scan. 

Guinevere - Velvet Burgundy

Guinevere - Velvet Burgundy

Queen Guinevere - Sketch 

Queen Guinevere - Initial Sketch

Guinevere - Velvet Burgundy Sketch

Guinevere - alternate version of completed gown

I've been completely neglecting Morgana while making these dolls of Gwen.  I've decided the next dress I make will be one for Morgana and I want to try my hand at 'evil enchantress Morgana' - I just can't make up my mind whether to attempt the lace concoction with the green underskirt or the cape styled outfit with the gorgeous chunky belt!

Queen Guinevere's blue dress can be found here

The original Guinevere paper doll can be found here

Guinevere Early Days can be found here

Guinevere Pretty in Pastels can be found here

Guinevere Almost a Queen can be found here

The original Morgana paper doll can be found here

 Copyright Sharon Souter - not to be used for commercial purposes 

Aristocats (?) Pop Out / Stand Up Set

I always thought this set was from 'The Aristocats' movie, but now I'm not so sure.  From memory the villain of the piece is a human butler and I know the names of the two main characters are Duchess and Thomas O'Malley.  Here the story seems different and the initials carved into the tree are wrong.

Unfortunately I don't have the cover of the book, but I was clever enough to keep the diagrams showing how each of the scenes is set up.  I'm also amazed that I still have every single piece of this set - all carefully packed away in a box.

I can date the set exactly to 1970 (coincidentally the same year 'The Aristocats' film was released).  My parents divorced that year and my Mom, sister and I left our home in Cape Town and travelled by train to Durban where we moved in with my grandmother.  The trip took 2 days as the train went inland first and did not follow the coastline.  To keep me occupied my Mom gave me this set and I can remember I couldn't wait for the journey to start so I could punch it out.

There are four scenes and the complete set follows:

Scene 1 - In the Country       .     

In the Country

Scene 2 - Sidewalk Cafe

Sidewalk Cafe

Scene 3 - Madame Rubens-Chatte's Salon

Madame Rubens-Chatte's Salon

Scene 4 - Happy Ending

Happy Ending

Instruction Diagrams

Instruction Diagrams

Snapped in Dublin

I love the hangings baskets that are put up all over Dublin in the summer.  These are next to the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre at the top of Grafton Street - I walk past them every day on my way to work and during lunch-time.  I only photographed the last few in the row - I was more interested in trying to get pictures without people in them than getting all the flowers in the shot!