Ever wonder what happened to all that blue glass we used to see? You know, the Haley’s MO bottles or Noxzema jars? I don’t know, either, but I’d like to.

Cobalt blue glass makes me quiver all over. And cranberry glass? Or emerald green? They give me the shivers as well. There’s just nothing like a beautiful piece of intense colored glass filtering the sun into shards of jewel toned light. Oh, to be rich enough to have artist designed stained glass windows in every opening in my house.

I remember as a child, my mom and grandma window-shopping the jewelry stores for the jewelry. But, not me. I pressed my nose against the window containing the gift items . . . the great big cut glass or cut crystal pitchers and punch bowls. All those lovely goblets and stem ware and that ladle with the crystal handle enthralled me. The lights of the store and the sunlight seem to play in the facets and sort of dance around dazzling me with the color and sparkle. I often resolved to save my allowance just to have a crystal punch bowl in my possession, but somehow, I never managed to come up with the entire amount.

I don’t own any of those things, now, either; but it’s deliberate. I have an informal home with no place to display such treasures. It would be a sin to store a crystal bowl in a closet. I can’t even imagine the circumstances under which I might do such a thing.

I do collect blue glass bottles. Old Noxzema jars, wine bottles, and milk of magnesia containers grace a ledge in my house, that has plenty of light pushing through. I also collect green glass bottles, although I only have a few of them. In some ways, the green glass bottles that I have are the pride of my collection mostly because my grandfather gave them to me.

Years ago, a hurricane caused an extremely low tide in the Neuse River near New Bern. Grandpa walked out onto the river bed, and found a huge key that he donated to the historical society and some Portugiese beer bottles. He gave the bottles to me, and I’ve loved them ever since. I have a feeling that they weren’t old at the time, but now they are.

My glass addiction began with those bottles. Then a few years later, my grandmother introduced me to beads. And now I’ve come full circle. I use beautiful pieces of glass to make beautiful glass beads. Could there be anything more satisfying to do as a career?

Anyway, I still wonder where all the cobalt containers went, and why anyone would own crystal that they don’t display.

So, here’s my motto for this week . . . Free the crystal and love the cobalt. And if you have some of this stuff you don’t want, call me; I’ll come get it!

~End~