Collection show and tell.....

One of my silly collections began in my mind back when I was a kid.  We were very poor and our cedar tree was decorated with a few trinkets and aluminum garland from the hardware store.  One year  my parents bought a set of glass blown ornaments like the one above and a whole world of fascination  overwhelmed me.  The color, reflection of light, the form, all of it fascinated me.

So as an older adult, I started a collection of glass blown ornaments.  The rule is that they are not to be the very expensive Radko ones, but that they are the less expensive ones, that I find along the way.  I really prefer that they have an old traditional style and nothing modern.  I went to a high end store the other day and all of their ornaments are now pink flamingos and green frogs and motorcycles, not traditional at all. The one above reminds me or our yellow cat.

This ornament actually reminded me of our border collie.  It is darker in color but really does resemble our dog. I also want them to be well painted with skill as some of them are assembly line work that gets to be a poorly crafted work.

This ornament was a close fit for our white poodle.  I bought all three of our pets at one time at a half price sale after Christmas a few years back.

I have a special tree, that I call the antique ornament tree to put these on and the collection grew enough to merit a bigger tree last year.  This one peacock design looked Victorian to me so I sort of thought it to be antique looking. I found two of these in different colors.

The trouble with the market now is that the Chinese have started to make them to replicate glass blown ornaments, but they are really plastic formed instead.  I have seen some in a metal form also but are perfect antique shapes. They use the same type of metallic glass like paint but they are not glass blown.

I don't get fanatic about my collection.  I watch stores that carry new ones each year and will go after Christmas to hit the sales.  I rarely buy it if it doesn't have some style of being hooked to the past history of ornaments.  I was at an antique store this summer and it has apparently become quite a collection trend as the plain ball ornaments with age are selling for high prices now. 

I will probably share some different ornaments as I go along, as I have old mushroom shaped ones and lots of toy shaped ones.  Of all the collections that I have, this one is the one that is fun, as I buy them when I find them, and I don't sweat it if it isn't happening.  i can just look every season for something new that looks old.  Thanks for reading....