Happy Friday, everyone! If you’re wondering where my Shop Talk posts went, I’m putting the series on hold for a bit while my design and knitting work is insane for the next few weeks. It will definitely return later with more tips and stories from my work as a designer!
Today I have wonderful vintage cuteness to share. Earlier this week, while I was in the middle of knitting dozens of characters and props for an upcoming photo shoot, I got some unexpected inspiration from the blog of Lance Cardinal, a set designer whose finely detailed models always blow me away. He had scanned TONS of vintage (1960s-’80s) View-Master reels featuring the coolest 3-D scenes of popular cartoons.
Maybe I saw some of these as a kid, but either way I’m blown away by the style and level of detail in the carefully constructed scenes. Lance actually scanned each slide, so the complete stories are on his website. He’s also got a post with several photos taken on the sets of these stories.
These are so amazing to me, I have to share more.
OK, some are cuter than others. But I love the knitting in that one!
Seeing all these cool slides on Lance’s blog led me to find the a website called View-Master World, which introduced me to tons more weird vintage Vew-Master goodness, including this scene in which Barbie is climbing a pyramid in Egypt.
This might sound kooky, but all of this was just the inspiration I needed this week. Back to knitting!
Oh my gosh! Now I wish I still had my view master. I always preferred these kinds of “pictures” to the flat stills of cartoons as a kid. The dioramas just felt real to me and acted as confirmation that my toys were alive.
Between those kinds of pictures, the Muppets, Pee-Wee Herman, and Rankin-Bass movies my love of miniatures was sealed. Is that why I grew up to sell handmade body parts?
We had a Viewmaster and several disks, mostly of National Parks. It was always a thrill to see those pictures jump out at you. Wish we still had it!
These are so amazing and cute!! I love them…I think my favourite is probably the chip and dale.
I had the creepy snow white view master slides, and also the peter pan slides! Oh my goodness.
I still have my childhood Viewmaster toy stored away in the attic and recognize most of the slides from your post. I have the Viewmaster and about 25 packets of various reels in a plastic storage box with the Viewmaster name molded onto the cover. My kids and I have fun playing with it and it reminds me of a simpler time when there were no electronics for kids to entertain themselves with.