Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Glass Paperweights as a Photo Collage

Okay, so you are probably familiar with these old glass paperweights. You can find them in a range of sizes and shapes at thrift stores, antique shops, yard sales, and so on. Sometimes you find them empty, and sometimes they have an old image, or sea shells, or dried flowers in them. Several years ago, I took an old one, I don't remember where I had found it or what was in it, and put my own photograph in it. It's one of my very favorite photographs of the seven children in my family, back when we were still children (I'm the little girl on the bottom right). For a long time, that was the only one I had. Then, slowly, I gathered more of the old paperweights, and scrounged around my mother's house for more old photographs, like this one of my father with his brothers, his father standing in the background (his father died a year or so after this photo was taken, so it's a rare image of my grandfather). And so the collection grew. I haven't done any in a while, for reasons of space, and also because I've now represented just about everyone in my family. So, lately I've been thinking of doing these as gifts, but I have yet to follow through on that! I do worry a little about keeping them in front of a window that at some times of year does get direct sunlight, so I am planning on making some sort of simple fabric cover for them so that they don't fade.

2 comments:

lynneguist said...

I stole this idea from you some time ago, though I've only made a couple for myself and many more as gifts. (And I use mine as paper weights, actually!) I found that giving parents and grandparents paperweights with pictures of their (grand)children was a successful gift, but giving people paperweights with pictures of their dogs...well, let's just say I don't know how I'm ever going to top that for those particular giftees.

Celeste said...

Oh, my, I hadn't thought of putting a picture of my dog in one! What was I thinking? And, to think, I thought I had just about covered the family, without even considering the four legged branch of it. Okay, I need to go home and pat a certain someone extra long just to make up for my oversight...