Painting by Numbers

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My bible, "Kitsch Deluxe" includes painting by numbers artwork in their run down of key items.
Personally I was surprised to see them included, I find kids' velvet art to the the pinnacle of ugly DIY creativity.

 You remember? If you were an 1980s child like me, you'd have had a black velvet art of My Little Pony, or He-Man, which would come with a entirely inadequate selection of four felt tip pens to add your own colour.

 I did have two of these glorious works of art in my old flat, some kittens in a basket & a velvet reproduction of the classic dogs playing pool.

 Since getting married & moving to a 'proper home' I ditched them, now we have our own little son I'll be letting him make a masterpiece when he's old enough to!

 But back to painting by numbers. I do have a ship bought for it's nautical theme rather than it being one.

 It's quite large & hangs above the cabinet. It's really well executed by whoever the original colourer-in was.

 I bought this for £2 at a church fête.

Claire

Sailor Jerry & Nautical Kitsch

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Nautical kitsch is mainstream & has been in fashion for interior design & women's clothing & accessories for the past couple of years.

 It's a theme you're more likely to come across in 'normal' homes, bathrooms most frequently & if it's a look you'd like to recreate you don't have to hoke around as much to find pieces to do so.

 When it comes to seaside decor, our family goes straight to Sailor Jerry.
You may be familiar with the name from the brand of sweet vanilla rum, or from his legacy as a tattooist.

 Sailor Jerry tattoos have strong nautical themes, real sailors & Navy men would have these designs.

 Any Sailor Jerry merch is expensive, so if you find anything that looks like his work at a car boot sale, I'd recommend getting it, even to sell on if the look isn't to your taste.

 We have many old school tattoo & nautical themed items, but by far the biggest is a recent addition, an authentic Sailor Jerry shower curtain. A reproduction of a dozen or so of his tattoo flash sheets, which customers would have picked their designs from.

 It's very striking & is the centre piece of our little bathroom. It was bought for £40 on US Ebay, which is the cheapest I could find it. That's an expensive buy for me, I prefer my treasures to be bargains!

Claire

Gypsy Dolls. They come for your Soul.

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Some holiday kitsch now. Along with the good old straw donkey, another common souvenir purchase from the 70s was a doll in traditonal dress.

 Package holidays meant we working class folks could get away to the sun for the first time, and trinkets were collected like trophies of these grand adventures.

 I remember my own parents having flamenco dancing lady dolls, and I too have one in the cabinet collection.

 Today's blog however are these spooky looking chaps.
Handmade in Cyprus & wearing traditonal dress, this pair were found at yet another car boot sale.
Love that they are still boxed, although unlike my husband's original boxed Star Wars figures, I very much doubt my dolls would sell for much these days!

Claire

Garden Kitsch - Help!

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I've hit a stumbling point when it comes to the outside of our house.

 I'm not too sure how to do garden kitsch, or if there is such a thing.

 The immediate answer would be gnomes, but I've always found them just too far into the realms of bad taste. Maybe I'm just repressing some fear.
In fact my earliest memory is that of a garden full of gnomes down the road from us when I was a toddler.

 I have some funny little bits & pieces in the pots at the front door. A reproduction pink flamingo, smaller & slightly lighter than the authentic ones. Also a tin crab & lobster from a pound shop, but I think living this close to the sea, anyone could get away with those.

 The pink bird house is a bit cutsey, steering toward the Cath Kitson look, which I personally find a bit too twee.

 It'll be a challenge for me investigating garden kitsch & getting the place into shape, but I think I'll leave it till next summer.

 Does anyone have any ideas? What did your granny used to doll her garden up with?

Claire

Indoor Lawn Flamingo

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The Trailer Park Special! My very own lawn flamingo.
A rare species, I previously only had cheap knock-offs (see my garden kitsch blog post next), but when we moved to our new house my mum spent the £20 it costs to import these plastic beauties & bought me two for a house warming present.

 It's such an iconic piece that I wanted one indoors & keep one in the large tiki flower pot beside the tv. The flower pot belongs 'to the house', chosen by our landlady as part of the furnishings.

 We are very lucky to have a landlady with classic taste, and I'll dedicate a post soon to some of the amazingly stylish vintage furniture she picked for our house.

 I managed to kill the plant within 2 months of moving in, my husband says I have 'grey fingers' when it comes to gardening. Luckily the rules of floral decoration & kitsch is "the more fake looking, the better".
Think of kitchens adorned with fake vines of grapes & onions and you have the right idea.

 So I used the pot to plant one of the flamingoes & draped him in some tacky, light-up red flowers from Ikea's 2008 Summer Range.
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Claire

Exotic Table Mats

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These are an eBay buy. I think buying kitsch on eBay is a little bit like cheating. To me part of the joy of kitsch is that you found each piece yourself, hoking in a junk shop, or bartering at a car boot sale.

 I'm a bit snobby about buying faux-kitsch reproductions & feel like it would be totally cheating to buy items from a retro shop like the one near St.Annes in Belfast.
That's ready made kitsch, someone else has done it for you.

 When your decor looks odd like mine, it's a reflection on me, and I don't want someone else picking what furniture will make my house look 'properly retro'.

 Of course shops like the retro one & books about other people's kitsch homes are fabulous places to steal ideas, but put your own twist on them!

 Back to the placemats, an eBay buy, so not as much a trophy as if I'd found them buried in a pile of magazines in a charity shop.

 Six separate prints on hard table mats, I remember my own granny having something similar.

 They came in a hard box, so are in as new condition, so I don't use them, just display them.

 My favorite is definitely the 60's orange hued photo of the canal boat.

Claire