Colour-in or Keep

Le Tour de Manège par Vanessa Hié

Un petit coup de coeur for Les Apprentis rêveurs, a company specialising in children's artwork and craft activities designed by French illustrators. I love their large colouring posters printed on recycled paper, and I'm tempted to buy the Circus one for the half-term holidays (8.90 EUR).

Le Bal des Sirènes, Elodie Nouhen

Being a lover of all things vintage, I've also found some special colouring books to collect, give, use or display, as you please.

Childhood friends - Russian colouring book (1982)
Hanna Rivka

1930s French colouring book
Petit Vintage

Simple objects to colour - Vintage Whitman colouring book
Ricracandbuttons

Pelican blanc 1930s French colouring book
Petit Vintage

Vintage Russian colouring book - A boy is chopping, a girl is weeding,

Hanna Rivka

British Woodland Friends colouring book by Dean
Kitsch and Curious

Faces from the past

Any idea who this little girl is? I came across this quirky Christmas decoration over at the ever-excellent Ancient Industries last night and was intrigued. It's actually part of an adorable set of five ornaments.

Any warmer? Well, these sweet cherubs were hugely popular in North America in the 1930s. Born in 1934, the Dionne Quints are the first quintuplets known to survive their infancy. They are the only female identical set of five ever recorded. However, their story is not a happy one. Four months after they were born the Canadian government withdrew their parents' custody, deeming them unfit, and proceeded to turn the five girls into a huge tourist attraction, later creating "Quintland" drawing in almost 3,000,000 people between 1936 and 1943!

Funnily enough these five girls have now appeared in another of my favourite online shops Labour and Wait. This time Marie, Yvonne, Emilie, Annette and Cecile are smiling away on quintuplet cut out and make paper doll books (reasonably priced at £7).

I've seen these before in France but had no idea they were reprints of sets like this dating back to the late 30s

Original Dionne Quints paper dolls by Whitman, 1937

From what I can gather, two of the quints are still alive and although these dolls have great retro appeal, the story behind them is far less enticing.

* Found via RetrotoGo