Thursday’s Unique Picks – Finding the Words

Home décor trend: Monograms.

Not even sure if it can be considered a “trend” anymore because the letters are everywhere.

"S" is for song...or Sarah. Just saying. Great vintage band uniform pin from Tipple & Snack's etsy shop.

Throughout history, folks have been putting their initials on loads of things: clothes, jewelry, pillows, towels, etc.  You name it, and people have put their monogram on it.

Charming antique hand embroidered monogram towel found in SaffronColoredPony's etsy shop.

Now, about four or five years ago, Anthropologie was credited for making over sized fabric covered letters, a hot item for the twenty to thirty somethings.

Anthropologie's current selection of fabric covered letters on line.

 You know those big bold letters to hang on your wall to let everyone know “Yeah, this is MY space”.

Every time my Brother-in-law would enter an Anthropologie with my Sis, he would comment on how he really would like to have a large letter like that for their home. I delivered.

Christmas 2009. I decoupaged my Brother-in-law, his very own "Z", using cuttings from a vintage language arts book, of course.

 I personally think the trend was started on the Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1975 though...

Image from Hooked on Houses blog. I always loved Mary's "M" proudly displayed on her wall.

Don’t we all want to be just like Mary. Turning the world on with a smile...displaying a large letter on your wall.

At some point the monogram wall hanging seemed to evolve.

Now there are large letters spelling it all out for you. I am not sure who was at the forefront of this, but I assume it was someone who liked to spell.

Fun for the entire family (If you are good at spelling). This 1938 vintage Gold Medal Word Game was found in CarolsNeedledEwe's etsy shop.

 Some may find all of these letters and words a bit trite, but I still love it! I have always loved bold text, various fonts, signage and labels. For goodness sake, even my silverware has it spelled out on the handle for me.

Eat your words, or at least eating with words in my house.

For This week’s Unique Picks, I have found the words from great etsy sellers to delight, amuse and decorate with for the wordsmith deep inside you.

A cheerful greeting hidden within the alphabet. How about that! This great vinyl wall decal was found in tasty suite 's etsy shop.

These great little handmade porcelain magnets from jo heckett on etsy are so sweet and sold individually so you can create your own little message.

This great print from zeppe's etsy shop, combines fantastic original photographic images to create playful phrases or words or for you to customise yourself to hang in your home.

Upcycled vintage side plates are hand adorned, by The Salvaged Tea Party's etsy shop, with sweet little patchwork letters. These can also be customised to create your own favorite four letter word. 

Awesome laser cut acrylic necklace found in sweet fairy boutique spells it out.  Sometimes you just need to create and/or be creative, especially when spelling words using vintage letters.

Now let me alert you, sometimes when you are trying to create words and phrases using vintage letters it can can get a bit tricky...if you don't have a full range of letters.

These great vintage scrabble tiles from Allthepreciousthings etsy shop sums it up.

You may need to "Be extra very good" at using what you have (and I don't just mean using the letters you have, you may have to wrack you brain a bit).

Lucky in "Luv" vintage metal marquee letters from Vintage Embellishment's etsy shop.

Last summer, I found a box of old plaster art deco letters at a flea market and thought, why not join the party. These letters are cool and they are bound to spell something. I didn’t really pay attention to what letters were in the box because I loved how they looked. Lots of lovely vintage chippy letters but... problem, not a wide variety of letters.

Sounds a bit like a word game right. Games are fun. Not word games (At least not for me).

I am not the best speller. If you have ever read my blog before the hubby proof reads it you may think, who the heck is this ding bat and how did she graduate from kindergarten?

This vintage spelling dictionary from stephunk' s etsy shop might be very useful for me. I don't know if it will keep me from writing afrodisiac when I really want to spell aphrodisiac though. My Dad always used to say..."Sound it out".

My poor father used to drill me for spelling tests every week. It was really painful.

Yes, it is like that. This should be our official badge. This pinback button was found in The Angry Robot's etsy shop.

My parents would even try to make spelling fun by playing a few rounds of the word game "hangman" when we would go out to eat.

I liked drawing the little man.

This is pretty sweet. It is a chalkboard vinyl Hangman wall game from GhettoVinyl (soon to be Empire City Studios) on etsy.

 I digress, back to the task at hand.

Finding the words from my pile of vintage advertising letters. NO mature content words please. I wouldn't want to offend anyone.

Then a few days ago I had a break through.

Smitten with these great vintage letters? Find them in my etsy shop, The Unique Bird.

I even called up my Father to ensure I had spelled it correctly. He confirmed my spelling and that "Smitten" was a real word. As he said, “it was what your Hubby was when he first met you.” Yes, “was” being the operative word. I think he still likes me.

When my hubby came home from work and saw my word...

he said, "you know, you could also make that into the word 'mittens'". Crap! Why couldn't I have figured that out before Christmas. Oh well, I guess "Mittens" is a winter word too, and we are still in the thick of winter. So I guess that makes my word a two fer.

Thanks for letting me spell it out for you today with the help of some great etsy sellers.

I love this antique woodtype alphabet displayed in a wood vintage tray that I found in bshousley's etsy shop.

Alapha- bet you liked liked it.