The Junk Room

As some of you may know I have moved back in with my parents. It wasn’t planned, but rarely in life do things actually go as planned. So with the Archival Room officially shut down and broken up into boxes and plastic bins, I have been going through the retro-rific items from my youth and using this time as the perfect opportunity to organize and make the next Archival Room better than ever!

While going through this process I have been coming across items that I certainly had not forgotten about, but I had not really seen in awhile. It can be nice reuniting with items from the past and other times it can be slightly annoying. Take for example a group of items I found in a little Tupperware jar; like these little plastic charms…

There was a blue plastic chain link that could create a necklace or a bracelet.

The blue links had these brightly colored plastic pieces connected to them that hooked to the charms.

Charms ranged from anything to baby bottles...

…to a bright pink wrench that says Love Me on it. (I have no idea why a wrench would need to say ‘love me’ on it.)

And a little lamb.

They look cute right? The problem is that I am not entirely sure about their origin story. I remember where I got them and such, but I have no clue as to the exact name of these charms.

I have searched on the internet for years now trying to track down the scoop on this retro item. The closest thing I have found is that these charms and blue links belonged to a line called Junk Necklace. At least that is what limited information has yielded for me.

I simply do not know enough about these items. They were special to me though. My parents used to love going to the flea market near our house. It was only open during certain weekends and there were always so many wonderful things to take in.

One booth at the flea market was a toy booth. Most of what the seller had were toys that were a few years old. There was a lot of Strawberry Shortcake and other things like that. This is where I ended up owning a Junk necklace.

My neighbor across the street had one and I thought she was the coolest person in the world and I knew that if I too had that interesting necklace with all the funky junky charms that I would be cool too.

I don’t know that the necklace made me any cooler, but I thought I was cool. My Junk necklace had more charms but I have since lost them. I seem to recall a baby charm as well as a pair of sunglasses. The item is one of my favorites in my collection, if not one of the more mysterious because I have no idea the exact name or company that made them.

There were other unique items to behold in this little Tupperware jar. From a wide view of everything it would seem that none of these items have anything in common. However I had some specific reason for grouping them all together in the Tupperware jar. I am certain of it. The next items are Unicorn paper clips. Let’s all collectively say, “Miss M, what is wrong with you?”

Probably the saddest thing about these paper clips was that they were supposed to be used, but with the colorful unicorn heads on top that about sealed their fate into finding a perfect home in my collection of everything imaginable.

These came with a fantasy inspired stationary set when I was younger. I’ve always been a fan of fantasy and the different kinds of creatures that exist in that type of world, so mermaids and unicorns pretty much represent everything that I think is awesome. The pink unicorn has faded a bit, which is ok. I still have no intentions of ever using these paper clips save for adding them in my collection. Somewhere, out there, is an office person screaming that I am wasting perfectly good paper clips on account of colorful unicorn heads.

The final artifact I found in the Tupperware jar that I think is the bee’s knees is this scrumptious purple piece of plastic.

A Grimace whistle! While not my favorite McDonald’s character, there is something special about this Grimace whistle that has continued to find a place in my heart and Tupperware jar. I’ve never understood what Grimace is. None of us have really. Right? Does anyone know the truth? Is he jelly? The mystery slime used for the hamburger meat? I just don’t know. I do know that this has certainly been a topic that people have discussed since the dawn of the cheeseburger. It doesn’t really matter though in the end. The whistle is a fun relic from McDonald’s and I can’t help but smile with its simplicity. This does remind me though that I should be on the lookout for a Birdie whistle. She was my favorite after all.

That’s about it for this little archaeological find in my Archival Room. Stick around as I am sure I will be uncovering all kinds of other Tupperware jars and Clinique holographic boxes filled with the little things in life. (That I just can’t seem to get rid of.)

Take care everyone, and if for some reason anyone has any information on the Junk necklace, please share!