My Silent Love Affair With Glass

**We sadly lost a legend and a great in the music world today to complications with leukemia. Etta James. I grew up listening to her music as my parents loved blues and jazz of that era. Her rendition of "At Last" has always been my favorite by her...**

I love glass. For me it is the sparkle in the house...the bling when the light catches it just right... When we lived in Manassas, Virginia, almost every Saturday hubby and I and sometimes the children, would head over to the most wonderful antique market I have ever been to! Laws Auctions. They held regular auctions of which I/we were a regular bidders, but most Saturday's and Sunday's the whole place was opened up to antique vendors. This was in the 70's. I ohhhed and ahhhhed over depression glass which was expensive, even then, I might add. Hubby was not impressed with it or the prices, as he remembered his mom building sets of glasses and dessert dishes from laundry detergent boxes and from movie tickets. I found that to make it even more desirable and....romantic!

Isn't this cool? I found this years ago and felt rather blessed as you don't see this type of thing often...When I found it, the antique vendor told me it screwed on to something that released the soap powder. For the life of me, I can not remember his explanation and probably I wasn't paying close enough attention as I was too enthralled with the piece.

I don't have any memories of soap boxes and the such, but I do remember one grandmothers sugar and creamer in a delicate pink and in her butlers pantry sat a beautiful pink glass cookie jar always full of her delicious cookies. My aunt Ethel, who was educated in Paris, has some lovely art glass by Tiffany and an amber glass bowl with a beautiful design. That gorgeous bowl sat in an East facing window in her gorgeous home. She knew I loved that bowl and among all her china and many other treasures, she left that bowl to me. I treasured it and it always brought back such happy memories when I looked at it, but one move, it did not make it and broke into four pieces. I cried as I threw them away.....such a loss! But that bowl lives on in my mind!

I don't have anything rare or expensive....I pick up pieces that touch my heart for one reason or another...And I like to put them in groupings or alone to stand out.


The above, olde medicine bottle was a buried find and after many soakings, whatever is in the bottle is just going to have to be part of its charm, as I could not remove it.

This Peanut Glass olde oil lamp has turned purple with age. This was one of my wins at an auction at Laws. The catalogs listed it without the matching globe at $500.00. I found one of these, in clear, for each of my children. I just loved the pattern. When the children became adults, some wanted theirs, others did not....

I have no idea about the small perfume bottle above. I just liked the etched design. I found it on a table in a deplorable yard sale for a dime....I need to find a pretty stopper for it. I like to think I rescued it!

This sweet little hand blown glass paper weight was found in Vermont with the grandchildren and our daughter one hot summer day. There were two and and Miss A. the oldest of the girls got the other one as it says St. Clair on the bottom. They lived in St.Clair Shores, just below us, before they moved to NY and she got excited thinking it was from there.....in time she will get this one, too.


There is a story about these two pieces...
When we were in Texas, on our last trip to see our son and family, I found these in what was once a great antique store. The store had closed and a kind of flea market junk store had opened, but.....sitting on an incredibly dusty shelf were a wonderful collection of olde glass bowls and compotes. One bowl was especially lovely and I saw the double H on the bottom for Heisey. Each of these bowls was ten dollars!! What a steal! I brought home five and gave the Heisey bowl to my daughter-in-law as a gift from me. We looked it up on line and sure enough, there it was. She wound up with quite a treasure!.
I am enjoying these two, one in the window and the pedestal bowl or compote filled with fruit and sometimes floating flowers....

And just up the street, not many feet, was a real antique store and I found ten of these. I purchased them for my website, but so far have not been able to part with them...a very real problem with me!

A darling little creamer I keep sitting in the purple creamer below...

My husband is an avid flea market person. Before I joined him in his enthusiasm I tagged along one day. This was in San Diego when we lived there. The flea market was huge and held regularly in the parking lot of the stadium. Some vendors had their wares spread out on cloths on the ground and that is how I found this. It was already lavender, but I have always kept it in a window and the purple is slowly deepening....

This little lavender sweetie was found in Canada on the North side of Toronto. There is a big apple alongside the road advertising apple pies made right there. The big apple, when open, has winding stairs to the top for a pretty view of the countryside and highway. There is a newly discovered antique store on the turn off to the apple store. Outside they have tables of many things...glass, pottery, china and here and there was something of interest and charm and for mere pennies....I found this...I love the shape and the scalloped foot. Inside the store were many beautiful treasures and it was featured on a past blog post....

This pretty milk glass hobnail bottle, once held heavenly Lily Of The Valley cologne long ago. I remember as a little girl, going with my Dad to get Mom a present for her birthday or Mothers Day and getting her a whole set with this pretty bottle. I loved those bottles then and I do today. They are just plain pretty! I have a granddaughter, Miss J., who liked this bottle on a visit here, last year, and it will someday become hers...

This beautiful olde Venetian glass apple was my mothers...I am guilty of breaking the stem, but I can not, will not, throw it out. This is over fifty years old now and the gold flecks throughout the apple are flecks of real gold....

I found the tall pink depression glasses in Kentucky twenty two years ago and have eight. The other glasses I have several of each and were found exploring back roads and antique stores when we lived in Manasses. They give such pleasure to just look at and especially to use!
I could share more with you, but I think this is the longest post I have ever written and hope it was not too long for you all....since there is a bit of pink here and there this will also be my Pink Saturday post over at Beverly's on Friday starting at 3:00pm. Be sure and come join the party as there are so many fabulous blogs celebrating our favorite color...PINK!

As I come across more pretty pieces of glass, I will be sharing my finds, here, with you all!
Have a happy day and thank you for stopping in! I love reading your comments!
Jil ♥
Maybe a glass loving party would be fun???