Glass Museum Permanent Collection

The name on the lamp was 'Anne' or 'Annie' but it was hard to see.

Russell's great grandfather was a glass blower at the old factory in the 1800s, but he doesn't know his name.  We need to ask his mom and then get on Ancestry.com and see what we can find.

I've seen a lot of purple glass, which is made by adding manganese to clear and letting the sun turn it purple, but it's not often that you get this gorgeous shade of lavender. 

Why doesn't anyone make lamps like this anymore....that don't cost a fortune?

As I recall, red is made by adding gold to the glass.

Love these lampshades.

Paperweights.  Whenever I see ones like this, I remember visiting friends of the family in the early 70s.  Mrs. Gooding had a collection of paperweights inside a table with a glass top and I used to looooooove looking at it.  I was probably 6 and 7 at that time.

Owl lampshade.

I love the detail on this plate.

Sandwich glass jewelry.  I have a piece....it's a pretty pink pendant made by a local jewelry artist (now deceased) and given to my parents when I was born.  

An example of the shards that were found after the factory was torn down and homes started to be constructed.  My parents dug some up in the 1950s when they first moved to town and I have them in a bowl.  They are very pretty.

 This was in the gift shop and are contemporary.

Wouldn't I love to have the one on the right?!

You can buy contemporary dolphin candlesticks but they are a bit out of my price range.  Maybe someday!

Next up: Marble Mania!

My Birthday At My Fave Museum With My Fave Person

Despite being really sick, I was bound and determined to follow through on what I wanted to do for my birthday, which was visit the Sandwich Glass Museum to see both 'Marble Mania' and 'Glassblower's Christmas'.  It's my fave museum anyway, so I don't mind taking a walk through it, salivating over all the beautiful glass.  It was a beautiful day too and we were comfortable in short sleeves and no jacket!  

The marble and ornament exhibits were at the end of the museum, so of course I shot ten trillion pics of the gorgeous collection.  

I need this.

And this.

If I was the sort who read all the info bits, I could tell you how they got the figures inside the little bottles but alas, I did not.  

Cup plates.

Painting of the old Sandwich Glass Factory

Another painting of it.  The old factory used to be located down on the marshes near Boardwalk and operated in the early and mid 1800s.  It's long gone now, but occasionally you can still find glass shards.  I am dying to dig for them but most of the land is now private property with houses.  Russell told me that I can probably find it in the marshes at low tide but I haven't yet attempted that.  The marshes are extremely muddy and I would need better footwear.

Salts

With the Sandwich name on the bottom.

These are the signature Deming Jarves dolphin candlesticks.  If you happen to find one in an antique store and it's the real deal, you can expect to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for it.  I even saw some in the M.H. DeYoung Museum out in San Francisco.

It would be worth clicking on this picture to see the carving detail on that box.

This was what an old home might look like in the 1800s.  I'm not sure if they change out the decor for each season, as I always seem to visit around Christmas.  

Gorgeous whiskey decanter.

Get in my house!!!!!

I swear if I had a time machine, I would go back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, and buy up all the glass, marbles and beaded purses I could get my hands on!!!!

Me want.

 More to come!

More Holiday Crafting

Well I was going at a healthy clip, making projects that I'd seen on Pinterest and wanted to tackle, but then everything in my life went sideways through no fault of my own, and I ended the month of November really sick which was not surprising considering the way I was run ragged and right into the ground.

But I did manage to get this one completed and I'm really pleased with it.  I got the shadow box at AC Moore.  It had some text on the back that I don't even remember and I covered it with silver glitter paper.  Next, I had to drill the hole for the battery operated LED lights, then pulled them through but left them outside till I finished with the tree scenes.  I used some styrafoam chunks to elevate the trees and then glued the other trees in place.  That took a day or so to dry.  After that I ran the lights around it.  The project that I was using as a guide had the wires showing like this and actually I kind of like the effect.  Once the lights were in place, I stuffed some cotton snow in the bottom, then used gold glitter paint around the edges (hard to see in this pic).  The sad thing is, I have no room for it but I'm going to try and find a place. 

And then I finished experimenting with a bunch of ornament ideas seen on Pinterest, just to check them off my craft bucket list.  I ended up giving all of them to my stepdaughter.  No idea what she's doing with them....but I don't have the room for them so better her than me!  lol

Stuffed with colourful pom poms.

This one was a disaster.  Supposed to be easy....pour in nail polish then swipe around the sides with a Qtip.  Well I used more polish than I should have so it got everywhere.  I had to let it drain in the trash for about 15 minutes before attempt the Qtip part.  I had polish all over my fingers for days.

The project I saw for this just had pearl beads in it but that looked really bad so I used a long strand of pearls I found buried in my ribbons container.

Same thing with this strand of red.

This is kind of pretty....just some fibers and stuff.

This one is stuffed with iridescent fibers.

Another pain in the butt.  I was going to just stuff the whole thing with that snow stuff but thanks to static electricity, it was hard to fill and hard to keep from sticking to my hands, shirt and basically everything in site.  So I threw a bunch of little holiday bits and bobs into it and made a 'spot the item' ball instead.

This is an interesting effect.  It's supposed to be like mercury glass.  You spray some mirror paint inside and swirl it around, hit it with a hair dryer to partially dry it, then put a drop or two of water inside and shake the ball to spatter it on the sides.  

Finally, glow in the dark paint.  I never fully charged it to shoot a pic after it was glowing.  I assume it worked.

Right now my craft table is a hot mess but I'm hoping to get a few more altered art projects done.