Orbs of Loveliness

If there is one thing the Mistress loves, it is big shiny balls! Every year when I have guest in, they always compliment me on my balls and their placement, and how they appear simple, but add so much glitz and a festive touch to all my rooms! You do know I'm talking about glass ornaments right? While I wouldn't say I'm a collector, I do have close to two hundred or more of them, and all sizes and colors. I place them in jars, glasses, boxes, on my tree, and vases. Some I even lie about casually. I think it is their color and the shiny object thing I like. You know it doesn't take much to distract me!!!!




Until the mid-1800’s, Christmas trees were mostly decorated with homemade adornments or edibles like fruits and nuts. But the German entrepreneurs based in the glassblowing center of Lauscha had a better idea. They began producing decorative tree ornaments made out of thinly blown glass. In the 1880s, F.W. Woolworth imported the first of these baubles into the U.S., triggering the American love affair with Christmas tree ornaments



Shiny Brite, always a staple in ornament manufacturing, continued making glass balls till the late 1950s and then disappeared. But how many of us remember pulling out as a child, the Shiny Brite box to help decorate, and every year there would be fewer and fewer balls, but we kept the box anyway? Eckardt was a German immigrant who made his own balls and then started the said ball company. Later he teamed up with Woolworth's, and they convinced the Corning Glass Company to start mass producing glass balls.






Over this past weekend when I was at the Capital Street Duo's house for the party, the next day, we went to visit the Lemoyne Antiques Market where what did I do? Why search out and buy more balls! All sizes and colors too! I got some real good deals on them. I also found this hat box to arrange them. Lots of the ones I bought were Shiny Brite. The Dame also gave me, I swear, like 60 more balls in addition. Besides placing on the tree, here are a few things I did with them......



This hat box from from Astor Millinery is great to fill with balls, and it's just what I did! Astor Millinery is no longer around, but I do love hat boxes. How do people transport their chapeaus these days with a hat box?



The Dame gave me this nifty glass dome to fill with balls also! I placed it on my bar ledge sitting on a gold gilded frame and placed with my snowman.


Many of us probably remember these glass ornaments from the 40s,50,s and 60, from our parents and our childhoods. They take so back to a time in our minds when things were less uncomplicated time. Like a song or smell, each ornament can bring back all those memories and reconnects us to one another and the past.