I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Saturday, December 20, 2014

Cooky Day / Folk Art Antique Tin Cooky Cutters


 
 
Hi everyone. Today is Christmas cooky day here at the beach. I thought I'd share my collection of antique Pennsylvania handmade cookie cutters. Actually this is not exactly a collection, I bought a big old tin with all these unusual cutters inside. I believe the designs are rare and unique, so many wonderful shapes I've never seen anywhere else. (There's a camel too; the dealer had him for me the following week!)
I like to display them in my biggest wooden bread dough bowl.



Here are the backs. You can see how crude and homemade they are. And dating from a time when I suppose a farmwife would make cookies often? Perhaps late 1800s.

 
 
Household items


scissors, my favorite


scissors back
 
key
 
People



man
  
lady
 
baby! Or what?
Ideas gratefully considered,
this one's a msytery to me.
 

animals

horse
 

fox number One


fox number two


wonderful kitty
 
 

Rabbit number one / jackrabbit
 
Rabbit number two / Bunny
 
lion
 
whale
 
 
 
 
Birds and Easter egg



 
easter egg / damaged
swan!


chicken
 
crow
 
robin
 
storebought hen

 
Eagle or Christmas turkey


Stars
 
Star with tulips

 
 
 
open star

 
Miscellaneous

holly leaf?

cracker

There were hearts too but  keep them with my rather large heart cooky cutter collection.I don't make cutout fancy cookies anymore. So each year I look at this collection and think, Should I sell them? I know they're collectible. But someday---far in the future, when I have a new little grand-helper?---I hope to make a gingerbread Noah's Ark.

This year I made simple shortbread cookies. No one here eats sweets [I threw out 3/4 of the Thanksgiving cheesecake, so sad.] but I feel a holiday dinner needs---something?
I used my grandmother's springerle pin.

 
It's hand carved, I think pearwood?  And it needs a handle repair.

 

Nothing special but they'll be something to offer on Christmas Day with a cup of tea?


 Mo thinks they'll be delish!

 
love
 
lizzy
 
gone to the beach..........
 
 
 
 
 

cold but sparkling
 

7 comments:

  1. Awesome collection! No! Don't sell them. I love that you display them in a bowl. Along with a puppy...LOL Merry Christmas! Kit

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  2. What cool cutters! Such great shapes.

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  3. Love the tin cookie cutters. I think they would make great quiting motifs! Thank you for sharing.

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    1. Fun quilting motifs---or patterns for a wool Xmas quilt! I like that idea!

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  4. WOW! What neat cookie cutters. Think of the work it took to make those things. Of course, kitty is my fav.

    Love that rolling pin and the cookies look good.

    Hope you're ready, not much time left now :)

    Kel

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  5. Very unique and interesting. Definitely don't sell. Even if you never use them, they are great for display and a wonderful talking point for future generations. Your grandmother's rolling pin is lovely, too. Happy holidays. Tammy

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  6. If you love them, you should keep them! I love the kitty and the scissors, and the swan is beautiful! The horse looks like the limo edition, LOL - a little stretched.

    I like shortbread cookies, especially if you can find key lime flavoring to put in them. YUM!

    Dawn is right - the shapes would be interesting on a folk-art quilt someday. Or, you know, cookies!

    Maybe you should make cookies for Mo?? I have doggy treat recipes somewhere.

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