I feel a bit daft even sharing this strange little project of mine, let alone giving it it's own post. It's slightly odd, but I'll share it anyway.
Here goes.
Last week I was washing up an empty passata jar ( it's sieved tomatoes, brilliant in Bolognese ) when it struck me how similar the shape was to the old milk bottles we used to have when I was a child
An internet search turned up these pictures of the 70's milk bottles I was thinking of...........
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Our milk came directly from the farmer, he delivered it himself and the name of his farm was printed on the bottle rather like this............
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I'd love to own one those bottles today. They were an everyday item that we took for granted but which seem so nostalgic to me now. I decided to make my own version
I considered crocheting a cover for my bottle , but I've done that before HERE
So instead I simply drew a version of the design used on these bottles on paper and taped to onto my bottle.........
The green ribbon covers up the screw top and is a reminder of the green foil top our milk had....that was green for raw, unpasteurised milk..... not green for semi-skimmed :0)
I picked some forsythia from the garden at the weekend and now it's flowering beautifully in my wacky, "random nostalgia vase"
Do any of you lovelies remember these bottles or suffer from random nostalgia like me?
I'm only in my forties but many of my sentences begin with " I remember when......" I do wonder what I'll be like in years to come!
Actually there are quite a few reproduction milk bottles being manufactured today....so maybe I'm not that odd. My favourite are the Emma Bridgewater ones, of which THIS is my favourite design.
Actually there are quite a few reproduction milk bottles being manufactured today....so maybe I'm not that odd. My favourite are the Emma Bridgewater ones, of which THIS is my favourite design.
Jacquie x
Bell idea il recupero delle bottiglie come porta fiori!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGood idea.
ReplyDeleteI bought a couple at my local second hand shop, the other day :-) AND I have a plan for them, later on.
AND I was so lucky to find a farmer with a depot right around the corner from me, in the city, from who I can get raw milk!
I remember the glass milk bottles well - who would have thought that in years to come they would be worth anything? I remember when they changed the shape from the tall one to the wider and shorter one. I don't use passata but I may just buy a jar so that I can put some lovely daffs in.
ReplyDeleteI do remember! sadly I hardly ever see a milkman or milk float any more. Do you remember occasionally getting stripey straws and stickers from the milkman too?
ReplyDeleteI remember my dad driving past the farm on our way home from work, I had to jump out and get the milk straight from the farmers fridge in the milking parlour as he did the milking. Back to the milk bottle - you could draw your design onto that clear 'back your school books' sticky back plastic then stick it on!! Sarah
ReplyDeleteI'm a dairy farmers daughter so we were brought up on raw milk and never saw a milk bottle!
ReplyDeleteMe too. When I was a child I always wanted to be able to use my thumb and open that foil top! But alas it was not to be x
DeleteI remember them too! When my sister-in-law got married last year, she had flowers on the tables in these old fashioned bottles. It was lovely. Have a great weekend. x
ReplyDeleteMy daughter has just bought several to use for her wedding. Have a good weekend.
ReplyDeleteI've seen these old bottles in vintage shops, but I don't remember them from when I was lttle, probably because I lived abroad so we must have had different ones lol, they have become trendy again to use as vases etc like you have done and I love the little label you made, it would be great if you could find an original bottle from that farm wouldn't it?
ReplyDeleteI think it looks lovely, I don't remember the shape of the milk bottles posted the ones we had were more squatter I think with narrower necks. Anyway it's a lovely idea & I think I will be buying my passata in glass bottles instead of cartons from now on.
ReplyDeleteI remember them. We had little ones at school that you stuck a straw into. I went to a cafe in Manchester and they served milk forthe tea in tiny little bottles that shape and I was so excited about them that Mr Dotty bought me one for Christmas (I sometimes drink cocktails out of mine ;D). I'll have to ask him where he got it.xx
ReplyDeleteLove it, so nostalgic. I have an old milk bottle with the farms details on, it lives on my mantle and I use it as a vase.
ReplyDeleteCould you put the paper inside to use as a pattern then draw the design on the outside of the bottle with a glass pen?
Excellent idea! :)
DeleteI remember when milk was delivered in bottles, into a little crate with a dial on it that you could set to 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 bottles. And sometimes blue tits used to peck through the foil to drink the cream from the top. Where has all the cream gone? I used to have "the top off the milk" poured over crumble and things. Sigh. There's a shop in Nailsworth that sells the little ones like we used to have at school. I'm trying to pluck up the courage to buy one, but I know my other half will have something to say about it. I love what you've done to your bottle, it looks lovely with the spring flowers and the green ribbon. I do wish I would get creative ideas like this sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI miss milk being delivered in bottles and having to get outside to bring them in before the birdies pecked the top and sucked at the cream layer! I wonder what happened to all those thousands of milk bottles. They changed to a squatter shape didn't they - I like them more like your bottle though. xxx
ReplyDeleteI miss glass milk bottles too. I'd love to own one. Feeling very nostalgic now I've read your post. Also I don't think milk tastes the same out of plastic bottles.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, I remember, and also the little ones we were given at school - needing to be thawed out on the radiators so we could drink them at break time! Happy memories indeed, and thanks so much for bringing up such an interesting subject Jacquie!
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly forsythia blooms have a lovely perfume, and they do look lovely in the bottle!
Joy x
Oh yes, I do remember .Do you remember the milk float coming down the street .Please don't feel daft at posting this I think this is wonderful memory and one I will be sharing with my friends just so we can all down memory lane
ReplyDeleteI remember mini glass bottles filled with milk which we drank in school....those were the days!
ReplyDeleteThe mini bottles you used to get in Primary school are turning up in Antiques shops nowadays. I can remember even further back than you!!!
ReplyDeleteoh ....I've missed a few of your last posts and they are so beautiful!!!! It's so spring there.....not here snow yesterday and maybe more on monday!!!
ReplyDeleteThe Jan Brett book is wonderful !! she lives very near us here in Massachusetts!!!
i want to embroider every page....I may have to find that book! Happy Day to you....
I'm also in my 40s, and definitely feel nostalgia. The world is always changing, but I think the pace of change has picked up in the past century, and it's only gaining speed as we age.
ReplyDeleteAs for milk bottles, I am from the US, and no one I knew had milk delivery in my childhood (1970s). My grandma's house had a milk chute, though, so milk delivery must have been still been common in the 1950s when her house was built.
My mother-in-law (born in the 1930s) grew up on a dairy farm, so we have some milk bottles from the old family dairy. They are a treasure! I noticed one of their milk bottles sold on ebay for $200 not too long ago.
Oddly enough, we have milk delivered every week to our house now. A few years ago I realized a local dairy offered home delivery, so I signed up for it. It feels so old-fashioned, which is why I like having the service! They bring the milk in unmarked glass bottles, which we rinse and return, but every Christmas they issue eggnog in collectible bottles, so I have a few of those up on a shelf with the family dairy bottles.
I'm a little younger than you are but I remember milk bottles. There was still milk delivery where my grandparents lived in New York City when I was very little. I remember my grandmother eating the cream from the top of the bottle. She was thin as a rail, so she needed it, I guess. :)
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your nostalgic remembrances about pretty milk bottle shapes. In my own 1940's and 50's childhood, we also had a milkman who delivered fresh bottle of milk (with the cream on the top) and picked up the empties from the prior week.
ReplyDeleteAnd...when I was in the first two years of school, we attended a half day, and had a milk break half-way through each day. We little scholars lined up in a black and white tiled cafeteria to each receive a miniature milk bottle with a straw from which to sip our ... Chocolate Milk. That's a very sweet memory for me.
xo
Yes, I remember it well too! I have an old milk bottle with a typhoo advert on it. My friend's parents ran the local dairy and I remember watching her Mum washing the bottles in a huge sink with spinning bottle brushes that she pushed the bottles onto. :) xxx
ReplyDeleteYou are too cute. Line them up all along the window sills. I have no milk bottles but I have this tall, V- shaped, footed glass beaker with measure marks etched onto it. It came from a dairy operation and there were boxes full of thes. I use it as a vase and also when not in use, it holds all my chopsticks. I see plastic versions in the kitchen stores.
ReplyDeleteYes I remember them well... opening the door to see if a bird had got to it first..and those little third size ones we used to get at school always slightly warm... yuk.. I've never liked milk on it's own from that moment on... used to swap it for sweets as we weren't allowed them at home... memories eh!
ReplyDeleteI loved those milk bottles, it was sad when our local farm changed their machinery and now use the cartons instead. It was a lovely idea to recreate one. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteOurs didn't have writing or pictures on. We had silver top all week and then on a Sunday we had gold top which was from Jersey cows. I also remember the small one we had at school that were a third of a pint....frozen in winter and warm in summer. Yeuch!!!
ReplyDeleteHello Lovely Jacquie, how well I remember these bottles and the little ones we were given at school - like you I would love to have some now. I love your idea of putting on your own label, fab, would love to see it coloured. A great post as always Jacquie, have a wonderful weekend, big hugs and loves
ReplyDeleteDorothy
:-)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ooh this has brought back lovely childhood memories of our milk being delivered although ours in South Africa didn't have any patterns or drawings or writing on them. My hubby loves these old milk bottles from his English childhood, I love that you are just as sentimental as I am and live a bit of nostalgia xxx
ReplyDeleteFunny you should ask that. I'm in a bit of spring cleaning at the moment, and while washing up some crockery from my grandmother, that I use to decorate the tops of my kitchen cabinets with, and thinking, I wished more had been saved. I love the old milk bottle too and have been on a hunt for some to fit a metal tote I thrifted last spring that holds six, just that size. I really love yours, thanks for sharing it. So lucky to have had milk delivered to your door! It's hard to find it fresh from the farm here now, I have to go about 40 miles for it here (Southern US).
ReplyDeleteHave a great weekend.
Hi Jacquie! I remember when .. .. .. will get more frequent as you get older! I should know! I'm older than you.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little, we lived in the inner eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The street we lived on still had bluestone cobbled guttering. Every morning, our milk was delivered by horse drawn cart. The clip-clop of the horse would wake me up every weekday morning! Our delivery took place at 4.30a.m.! So you can imagine how excited my mother was because once I woke up, it was "New Day!!!" and I would not go back to bed for love or money. :)
My husband and I had a small farm a few years ago and we milked our own cow, so our kids drank pints of raw Jersey milk everyday for a couple of years. Full cream pasteurized milk tastes like skim after you've been drinking full butter fat milk straight from the cow.
I think everything tasted much better out of glass than it does from plastic, don't you?
Cheers
Oh yes I remember when we had milk bottles like that. I'm a bit older than you and find my self saying " do you remember " more often the older I get. Thanks for the wander down memory lane today
ReplyDeleteJackie x
Love it and those bottles are wonderful xo
ReplyDeleteHi Jackie, I follow you from Miami, I love your blog, thanks for all the inspiration! Why don't you try drawing on the bottle itself? With glass markers... I am sure the results would be even better!
ReplyDeleteI remember those bottles well! They are quite collectable now and I've seen them at vintage fairs and in antique shops. I bought one a few years ago on holiday and use it for flowers too. I love your original and fun take on a memory. x
ReplyDeleteNo Indeed you are not alone in loving these milk bottles Jacqui, we had a large collection of the 1980s ones with advertising slogans for Kellogs Cornflakes etc. One day in a mad fit of Clearing Up I made my husband throw them out. He sometimes reminds me that they are now worth £10 each ! (I did show him your post!)
ReplyDelete