Antique Bottles... Iphone Picture

Saw these sitting in a window of an Antique store this weekend. I loved the way my Hipstamatic camera on my iphone captured them.

Saturday in the Mountains - The Flea Markets...

The road to the flea market. Isn't this just lovely? You turn off the main road to a small country road, then down this dirt road. The trees all have faded signs on them that read books, quilts, chairs, and on and on. It is a small flea market but the people are wonderful.

Retro casseroles and bowls. I find these at Goodwill for a third of the price.

I love these old metal cookie cutters. They are so graphic. My grandmother had several and they bring back memories of making cookies and sipping lemonade.  These were very expensive, almost $20.00 a piece.

Some beautiful bottles. I love bottles. They just fascinate me. Big ones little ones. Soon everything will be plastic and we will not have anymore bottles.

This is a North Carolina face jug.  These were originally made at the end of the day with scraps of clay left over from the days work.  Each potter made their own jug to keep their refreshments in. Now several potters do nothing but face jugs. Each one is unique and different. I have several and think they are really fun.

Saturday I spent the day having meals with my children and taking photographs of the sights.  It was one of those clear and crisp days that told you winter is on the way enjoy this while you can.  I took it to heart and decided to shoot and shop. I went to one of the local flea markets, some antique stores and hit the mountain roads. It was a beautiful day ending with a moutain dinner with people I love. Perfect day.

Speaking of Bottles

I thought I would share a few more bottles with you. The majority of the bottles we dig up look like the bottles below once they have been cleaned up. Many have turned colors or have this iridescence in them. I think it is from the salts in the water reacting to whatever was in the bottle.

The bottle vary in size from small 1 to 4 inches, to medium 5 to 10 inches, to large anything larger than 10 inches. Most of the larger bottles were Clorox, liquor, or wine bottles. Some of them can be pretty interesting.

These are bottles I have found in my latest excursion to the river. They are all about three to four inches tall. Several of them have cool bubbles in them or are colored with soil and salt. I have lots of this type of bottle.

My girlfriend called me this week to share these bottles with me. She know I have a thing for glass and bottles. These bottles are from Pottery Barn's latest catalog. They are from eastern Europe and are quite large. They range in price from $129.00 to $179.00. No two alike . Wow.

I love these Pottery Barn bottles, also. I think the ones with the forks and spoons in them are so cool. Now I am on the look out for some of these. I do not want to pay the prices they are asking for their bottles. If you run across any bottles like these let me know. I am interested.

January Photograph #5 - The Bottle

One of the things around here to do is to dig bottles. We are a small town surrounded by water. The Cape fear river on one side, the Intercoastal Waterway on another then farther on the Atlantic Ocean. Interspersed among these are several swamps, coastal creeks and a lot of marsh land.

South of town, along the river they used to take the garbage out in wagons and dump it along the river. When the tide came in the coastal creeks and river would swell and the garbage would disappear. The organic stuff would be eaten by the marine animals and birds, the metal would rust and erode, and all that would be left would be glass and pottery.

Every few months, several of us go bottle digging to these dump sites. The bottles are covered in yuck when you first get them. We take buckets and several gallons of water. This bottle is an ammonia bottle. The chemicals have reacted with the soil and water to make this snowy pattern on the bottle. With the light streaming in on it it is so beautiful.

Garage Sale Finds

Today was hot and muggy. I got a late start so I was only able to hit three or four sales. The first two were picked over and I am not a big clothes person. The third was great. The bottles were for sale there. The gentleman had several tables and boxes full of bottles. He worked for a demolition firm and had been hired to clear an old dump site downtown on the Cape Fear River for the new convention center. His crew had found all these bottles. Some were hand blown with bubbles, medicine bottles, two part mold bottles, clear bottles, brown bottles, these gorgeous aqua bottles. I missed the cobalt bottles. I didn't feel too bad cause I have a lot of those. I ended up with thirty bottles. I pretty much stuck with the smaller bottles. I like them for window sills. I put my sand collection in the clear bottles. The aqua bottles are my favorite. The small bottles can be used in altered books or assemblage pieces. All for 25cents each. What a deal.

The last yard sale was interesting. A mother - daughter decorating team. I bought a box of ten dress patterns for 5 cents each. The patterns looked like they had dressed the crew from Dallas. Look out Joan Collins. I love the pattern pieces as backgrounds on canvas. They also had these interesting ornaments. The stars and Fleur de leis. They are all hand sewn with metallic threads. Just beautiful. The whole bag was 10 cents. The woman actually apologized to me that they were "sort of old". Old is good. I also picked up four yards of this damask. I loved the dragonflies holding up the pearl like swag. Pillows maybe? The Russian spoon is for my mom. She has a very interesting collection of hand painted Russian boxes, containers, trays, and spoons.