Catching up

Wow, I have fallen behind in my sticker blogging. Time to catch up.

One highlight of my fall was a trip to Russia back in September. You wouldn't think that Russia is a great sticker-shopping venue, and for the most part you would be right. But then I found these stickers at a souvenir shop:

Seriously, these are like the most adorable stickers I've seen all year.

And I bought them without giving it a second thought. Sorry to report, I'm kind of happier with puffy, colorful nesting-doll stickers than I would be with actual nesting dolls.

The other notable sticker acquisition this fall is a group of puffy Hallmark stickers made for teachers to give out to their students at Halloween and Thanksgiving time. My dear friend Amanda, also a sticker collector and a teacher, found them and purchased them with the understanding that when things are this corny they circle back around and become hilarious again, and that I should absolutely have them:

These have a kind of nostalgia factor, since I remember getting encouragement stickers from my teachers back in the 1980s.

"Gourd job" is a stretch; "You Rock" is probably the best one. And "Good Gravy" is just as cute as can be.

Happy fall!

Stickers to soothe the soul

Since holiday angst is upon us all, I thought: what better remedy than to post some super-cute stickers to assuage frayed nerves?

Sanrio is good to start with...

 Frolicking sheep are always calming.

 Breathe in, breathe out...even the football is smiling!

Don't you feel better now?

Important update! Betsey Clark!

Betsey Clark has been identified as the artist of the below-mentioned stickers.

It bears clarifying, Betsey Clark is NOT affiliated with Precious Moments.

Precious Moments

Not a Precious Moment.

Late night musings on Joan Walsh Anglund

If you are a child of the seventies, then you probably remember Joan Walsh Anglund's iconic illustrations. Sweet, turn-of-the-century era American girls and boys (who featured in such books as A Friend is Someone Who Likes You) had round faces and no noses or mouths. Like Hello Kitty, you say? But no.

This reminds me of a scene out of Howard's End:

My grandmother had a small collection of her books that she would read to us, and my mother's subscription to Good Housekeeping sometimes featured Joan Walsh Anglund's "Children's Page" with cut-out activities like paper dolls. So even at a very young age, I got it: Joan Walsh Anglund was for children!

Please do not confuse Joan Walsh Anglund with Precious Moments, Holly Hobbie*, or other characters whose designs were available through Hallmarks stores.

I had sheets with these figures on them. Does anyone know who they were?

Not Joan Walsh Anglund

Joan Walsh Anglund

Not Joan

Joan

Now, I need to digress for a moment and point out that Precious Moments (which I thought the above figures were at first) has become such an industry that there is a Precious Moments park in Missouri. My friend Natasha first mentioned this to me, and I have since learned that not only is there a park, there is a chapel that was "inspired by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in Rome" (oh, THAT Sistine Chapel!).

"The art on the east side of the Chapel depicts the Bible’s Old Testament stories; while New Testament stories are shown on the west side. .... All of the murals combine to cover nearly 5,000 square feet – truly a breathtaking sight."

OMG I need to see this before I die.

Why doesn't Joan Walsh Anglund have a park?? I would totally go.

*Holly Hobbie will receive her own post in due time because, much like Strawberry Shortcake, she has been tarted up and it is just NOT cool.

The digital age

When Steve Jobs passed away, and everyone began to pay tribute to him on Facebook, I wondered if I had a sticker that would honor his memory in some way. Unfortunately, and with no disrespect intended, this is the closest I can come:

In point of fact, this in no way honors the memory of Steve Jobs himself. Instead it honors Olivia Newton-John. And...really big calculators. Oh, and leg warmers.

Which, actually, I wish were still around because it's October and getting chilly.

But I digress. I think the "let's get digital" sticker is really all about the dawn of the computer age. With that awesome, Wargames font and a desktop computer that needs to lose some serious weight, it's a sign of the birth of an era: in 1983, people (even Hallmark shoppers!) were ready--excited, yet--to get digital. And the rest is history... from playing Lemonade to blogging on my laptop, it has been an amazing 30 years.

You can and should read the text of Steve Jobs's beautiful 2005 Stanford commencement address here.

Retro stickers

There is a big nostalgia factor in collecting stickers, so I've been thrilled recently to find new stickers being made in the old-school style, that is, full-on 1980s rainbows and unicorns. At the time that I first liked rainbows and unicorns (and let's be honest, I never stopped) it never would have occurred to me that they were an 80s thing, rather than just a girl thing. Maybe they're both? In any event, Mrs. Grossman's sticker company has these lovely rainbow shooting stars:

These (hard-to-photograph) rainbows look like they're right out of a 1983 sticker album:

Sandylion came out with these recently:

And Hallmark with these puffy, sparkly rainbows and rainbow stars:

I guess rainbows for the 21st century have to be sparkly or shiny to sell, while back in the day the ROYGBP sequence was enough. The same sparkle factor apparently goes for unicorns:

Where did I get these?! I can't remember but you can FEEL the sparkle on the stickers.

The other thing that has made me happy is that some old-timey sticker companies are re-issuing classic designs, like this butterfly by Hambly Studios:

Hallmark, which has never been a focus of anyone's collecting interest, but which nevertheless was prolific with its designs in the 1980s, has reissued these super-cute frogs through their "stickeroni" series (available at your neighborhood pharmacy!)

You know you traded these!