These were all the rage among crafters in the 1950s and continue to bring joy to Kitsch lovers who don’t like staring at plain wine or liquor bottles. Most popular canine colors were white, gray and black. They usually came with accent color noses and button or rhinestone eyes, in this case both. If the crafter was very industrious Fifi also had knit or felt red lips and a jeweled collar.
‘Tis the season to be celebrating all kinds of krazy krafts as the holidays seem to bring out the most enthusiastic and kitschy kualities in krafters. These kind of stuffed pantyhose dolls scare me more than Cabbage Patch dolls or apple people because it seems so gross to be using old garments that have snuggled so close to the sweet spot only to be caressed in their new lifeform like they were as fresh as the driven snow. Whoever made these has probably been stuffing their old pantyhose into a drawer since they first sprung on the market in the 1960s.
The wikipedia definition says that pantyhose are designed to:
I wouldn’t mind if its uses were confined to the above because the see-through skin on dolls with pantyhose skin also freaks me out. Not to mention the gingham and paisley outfits. I do love the ‘please don’t touch’ signs though. Don’t worry, I won’t. Merry Elephantiasis Christmas!
This fashionble bit of Kitsch is the winner of the prestigious Classique d’ Camembert award, the highest honor bestowed upon an object submitted to The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at awmok.com. I thank aKitschionado Jason Mercier for his excellent and discerning taste.
Not only is Barbie always stylish she’s apparently Jewish or at least celebrating the Chosen People this Hanukkah season in her custom sewn Shalom bathrobe. I especially love that it looks like it’s made out of a hand towel.
This fashionble bit of Kitsch is the winner of the prestigious Classique d’ Camembert award, the highest honor bestowed upon an object submitted to The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at awmok.com. I thank aKitschionado kookykitsch for her excellent and discerning taste.
Rising like several healthy squirts of whipped cream on an otherwise dull sundae, the Sanctuary spa/resort/fantasy masterpiece of plaster workmanship on Palm Dr. in Desert Hot Springs, California almost caused me to have a car wreck when I first drove past it. Absolutely incongruous with anything else in the area, it still gets my vote as hot spot in town.
Despite the fact that the plaster is slathered on so thick that the mashed potato/sour cream/whipped cream exterior already shows cracks, I’ve long known that this ‘heaped on’ technique is an excellent way to cover up otherwise dowdy exteriors. Cottage cheese or fan brushed plaster or concrete do not count here. That’s merely for people who have no taste. The cascading and mounding effect seen here at The Sanctuary is, rather, a fully realized artistic vision that scales to the peak of Mt. Kitschrest and never comes down for a landing.
I found these comments online: “… staff , restaurant, rooms and pool area is perfect” … “Rollaway bed mattress ($10 extra charge) was so old and uncomfortable” … “Everywhere we went the staff took time to wish us a good day” … “What a dirty, stinkin, filthy dive!” … “Best $70.00 ever spent…”… “on the first day we have no shampoo and when we ask the answer was “we are not received yet from supplier ” ( who cares-i pay for room ).”
Yes, my birthday’s today and that means it’s time for me to make another one of my signature spewing fire and lava volcano birthday cakes! Ranging from a foot to 4′ wide and anywhere up to 25 pounds and 2 1/2′ tall, these overdosing towers of sweetness have accompanied me rounding the bend to another year ever since I first saw a commercial for The Special Effects Cookbook in 1992.
The real recipe calls for a nicely constructed “lifelike” looking volcano, but I’m an artist and into Kitsch so it should be no surprise that my cakes are hulking, unrecognizable lifeforms wayyyyy out of the realm of what the cookbook author had in mind.
Made of up to 10 layers of anything I want – vanilla, chocolate and cherry cake, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, Rice Krispy treats and any other foodstuffs appropriate for celebration – my creations are massive lumps of sugary heaven surrounded by Jell-O or whipped cream and accented with Snickers, mini marshmallows, sprinkles, multicolored frosting and flaming sugar cubes-soaked-in-almond-extract torches, all of which form a cave around spewing lava made from eggs, water and dry ice.
This may seem gross but let me tell you that in the 17 years of cooking/sculpting/drilling these things, even the most Vegan amongst us dives into this junk food fantasy like they’re in the hot dog eating contest at Coney Island. No utensils necessary, everyone goes fist first as the cakes are big enough that guests can easily locate a germ-free area in which to do their excavation.
Here’s my Birthday ’94 Volcano before it blew:
And here’s the first Volcano cake I ever made in 1993:
See it erupting!:
Here’s me making a second 1993 lava spewing dragon cake in case my first volcano was too small to feed all my guests. A drill is one of my most necessary kitchen utensils.
Here’s my Volcano Birthday cake, 1997. Rather than stack four cakes on top of each other and risk an avalanche, or whatever it would be called if a volcano tipped over, I erected a mountain range.
Top view:
No Volcano cake this year but a most happy birthday to me!!
Only 5″ long and less than 1″ high, this solid brass puppy weighs a ton. For years he sat on my desk atop my most important notes, making me less resentful of going through the stacks of papers he kept in place while I procrastinated going through them every day. One day he fell on the floor and I noticed how strangely shaped his little feet were. Only then, after almost 20 years of being a paper protector, did I realize the dachshund was, in fact, a bottle cap opener on his front legs and a can opener in the rear.
Discoveries like this make me very happy. It seems like I have a brand-new object in the house! He’s definitely hand sculpted – be careful around his sharp butt! – but his polished smooth body makes him very fun to handle and easy to operate. I do miss him guarding my papers but he seems much happier in his new and more exciting role.
Though it doesn’t seem like quite the appropriate material for a dress commemorating a lasting holy union there’s no disputing the price is right! Made entirely of toilet paper, tape and glue, I think these gowns are fabulous and the concept of buying the makings of your wedding dress at Costco is brilliant. I mean it. I’ve never understood anyone blowing the entire wad on a dress they’ll wear once, along with flowers and a chopped liver swan and then living in squalor with only a photo album and four fondue pots to remind them of the one day that life was so entirely good. I’d so much rather spring for a few hundred rolls of toilet paper, which probably leaves much to spare after the gown is glued, then end up using toilet paper for napkins the rest of my life because all the coin went into the dress that you’re probably already too fat to fit back into.
This brilliant Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest is sponsored every year by cheap-chic-weddings.com of Boca Raton, Fl. Although the 2009 first-place winner was Ann Kagawa Lee of Honolulu, Hawaii, pictured above, my favorite is second place winner, Terri Glover of Marlin, Texas, because of all the little toilet paper points sticking out that probably rippled in the breeze as she walked down the aisle.
I especially love Terri’s strap marks on her back. It’s so nice to see someone who knows they have a very special outfit to wear who grooms their body accordingly for the occasion.
Here’s a video showing this years’ entries:
Although I think Cheap Chic Weddings has provided the Kitsch fashion statement of the year I also really, seriously, definitively think that their concept of toilet paper wedding gowns are an all round brilliant idea.
Not sure exactly what blend Tony Whan stashed inside when he made Murray Yunkers this jar featuring a removable chef’s cap with holes in it but it’s awfully cute and practical whatever contents it was made for. Though it would seem like a special blend, be it coffee, tea, snuff or whatever, would want to be in something airtight so the holes in the top don’t make much sense.
Maybe it was for something like sugar, flour or grated cheese but there’s no way of securing the hat when the chef is turned over so that makes no sense either.
Standing 9″ high and looking somewhere between professionally made and a lumpy school project, it’s signed “Stole” on the bottom, which also makes no sense seeing as the cap clearly says it was made by Tony Whan. Perhaps Tony “stole” the bottom part from “Stole” and only made the top.
I guess Tony Whan was in his own little world making something special for Murray Yunkers and I guess I’ll never know what exactly it was made to hold but I’m happy I have this happy little chef to make me think about both of them every time I walk in my kitchen.
I went to a lot of parties this weekend and the candy corn, the official candy of the season, was laid out in style. A big mound of it at one affair, tasteful scatterings of it around a jello mold at another – yes, many of my friends have the same kitschy eating habits as I do! I’ve had this refrigerator magnet trapping my favorite candy in resin on my frig for about 20 years. I’m not the refrigerator magnet type but candy corn is so at the top of my list I decided to stick it on the freezer door in 1988 and and see what happens as things like sunlight and feather dusters hit it .
I thought it would crumble long before this but, in fact, it has aged gracefully. Its highly saturated, screaming loud Halloween orange has dimmed some but the street lines yellow still shines bright and the white tips have faded the same way teeth start to gray over the years. I can see the sugar or whatever the main substance of this foodstuff is start to coagulate but otherwise the corns look perfect in their Esther Williams synchronized swimming formation, preserved forever here in my kitschen.
Resin grapes were a huge thing in the late 1960s/ early ’70s but none so succulent or popular as those that were fashioned into pineapple table lamps. I have the red one pictured here as well as a yellow one and a purple one. It’s a bitch to change the bulb though. I always have to call my electrician when one burns out. If I were the inventor of these I would have had one easily decipherable grape that popped out for an easy change. But for all I know these lamps have that feature because as adventurous as I am in my life and career that’s how unadventurous I am when it comes to figuring out anything mechanical or that involves following detailed instructions of any kind. Lucky for me,these grapes look fantastic whether they’re turned on or off.
