Making Chicken Salad

Sometimes old books can provide the best inspiration and information. The one above was my grandma's Home-Ec book, printed in 1926.

That's her!




The fashions and language are obviously dated, but the lessons in the book are ones that I think should still be taught to boys and girls in school: taking responsibility for yourself and your share of the household duties; planning ahead and budgeting for purchases; buying quality items, which will last for a long time; mending or fixing instead of replacing; and making thoughtful choices, which will not only benefit you, but those around you.

This one was mine when I was little. Kind of silly, but good basic instructions for a little girl!

These last books offer more information than I can process yet. I just recently discovered some of the books in a thrift shop, and have since found a few more, which makes my collection just three books shy of being complete! Everything is covered in this amazing series, which was published by Time Life Books. We are talking knitting to pickling and preserving to camping to cardboard furniture to macrame to bonsai and BEYOND! They are filled with amazingly detailed instructions for every wonderful retro craft you can imagine.




Each project also features a photograph and biography of the artist who authored the section. Love it!!

As with Grandma's book, these offer not only step-by-step instructions for amazing craft projects, but enforce the values, which I feel are important: being thoughtful of and spending time with the people you love; making instead of buying; reusing or re-purposing what you have; taking the time to notice and find joy in your immediate surroundings, instead of focusing on what you are missing out on somewhere else.

If you run across any of the Family Creative Workshop, snatch them up!