Collections: Pyrex

Today I present to you one of my newer and most addicting collections…

Vintage Pyrex!! My husband and I have been thrifting for years, and we always saw the Pyrex bowls and casseroles, but we never had room for them.

Well then came the house! and then came Pinterest! and then came Tasha! We finally had room, I was bombareded with awesome pyrex on pinterest and I met Tasha who is a HUGE collector and can tell you the name of any piece you show her. I realized owning ALL of these awesome pieces wouldn’t actually be THAT hard and I already had the Corelle to match… the words of an addict…

It started with that little yellow fridgie in the top left corner. I found it for $2 at a local antique mall. I loved how bright, colorful and sturdy it was. I NEEDED more…

and more…

It just keeps going! it took me close to 2.5 hours to round up all of my pieces, photograph them and put them back where they belong! I got a great workout yesterday, this stuff is heavy!!

You never really know the magnitude of a collection until you put it all in one place, in my case the dining room table, floor and chairs! After taking these photos I decided that from now on, I’m only going to buy the REALLY cool pieces, the rare ones, and the unusual ones. No more buying just because I found a piece, any piece, especially mugs! I never paid more than $15 for a piece, the average price is usually around $6, so it’s not like its an expensive hobby… Collecting really is an addiction. I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs so I guess this is my substitution?

It’s just really fun going to the thrift stores, antique malls, yard sales and flea markets looking for something special. Its a nice thing we do on the weekend together as a family. CT collects Pez now, so she gets in on the fun too! She finds at least one for $1 each time. I’ll show her collection soon enough.

I’m working on more collection pieces for the coming weeks, do you guys enjoy seeing them?

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Behind The Scenes: A Tiny Colorful Mess

Fun Fact: no matter how great you are at casting plastic, you still have to clean every single piece!

I have been doing this for years and I’m very good at making the molds, but no matter how good they are, the castings edges still need to be cleaned. I hate the cleaning, since its done with a craft knife, but I do love the leftover shavings!

I’ve been keeping it all lately for an upcoming project. My husbands hate it all because it goes EVERYWHERE! It sticks to you and gets stuck in the carpets. Our poor vacuum probably hates it too! But it’s sooo pretty to look at and touch. I wish I had been keeping all the shavings all along, I bet it would look neat in a jar or something…

Hmmmm, I think I need to go find a jar ASAP!

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House Tour: The Living Room, Up Close

Ive been wanting to take more photos of the house, but sadly my poor little camera was dying! I held off for as long as I could, but finally this past weekend after stumbling on a really great sale, I bought a new SLR camera!

To celebrate I of course went around my house taking lots of photos!! I haven’t had a nice SLR in years! I forgot just how nice of a photo I could take. I thought it would be nice to share some of the up close photos I took in our living room…

As you can see , we love to mix our nerdy collections in with our more traditional items. It proves you can have the neat decorated home AND the nerd collection all at the same time!

I think I might want to do an up close version of the dining room next!!! I love vignettes or corners of others homes.

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Thrift Finds: June 26th thru July 14th

We’ve been having some great luck at the thrift shops and antique malls lately. Maybe it’s because we go more often? Or on better days?

 

So first off we found an awesome globe with all the current countries in the correct places for $5! CT loves it. I found some glasbake soup bowls, one says “souper bowl” and the says “soup’s on”. Their a great weight and really big! I also found a teeny tiny plate for my plate wall!!

We stumbled upon a load of books at our local Goodwill, all new and in perfect condition!! Most were around $1 some or the larger ones like the Martha Stewart cooking book and Weird US were around $2.50. The pile shown is mine, my husband had a pile all his own but he put them all on the shelf as soon as we got home! No pictures! I also found a few vintage Raggedy Ann (and Andy) books with beautiful illustrations inside, plus a  Raggedy Ann paper doll kit, also in great condition. I LOVE Raggedy Ann, and Andy, since I was little. I had a few dolls and books, plus 3 foot tall stuffed versions!! (they went great with my 3 foot tall smurf that I STILL own). I now wonder how I wasn’t scared of them as a small child??

Last weekend we took a day trip up to a few spots in PA and thats where I found the awesome vintage Pyrex pictured above! I finally have a square casserole AND a snowflake piece. Plus I picked up a Mickey Mouse Club glass and an Avon bottle in the shape of the Capital!! (I love travel related stuff, plus I’ve lived close to DC my entire life). CT found a bunch of Pez she didnt have, and has already incorporated them into her collection (shes up to about 116 pieces now!!)

The bright red mickey shown wasn’t from a thrifting trip, I found him on Ebay, I just really wanted to share him! He looks like he came out of one of the Mold-A-Rama machines back in the day. I’ve loved those machines ever since seeing one in the show Wonderfalls. Ive only ever seen one in person, and it was at the Field Museum in Chicago, I got a green dinosaur! Does anyone reading this live near one of these awesome machines?? Or does anyone live near Rotofugi in Chicago? (they have a machine now with a TIM BISKUP design in it!!!!) Let me know, I’d love to trade some jewelry or such for a molded wax figure!!

Ah, and again last on my life of finds was from my mom! I saw these at a thrift shop near here house a few weeks back, but it was all bundled up and I really only wanted to shakers. So I passed on them. I regret it about 30 minutes into our drive home so I called her to see if she could pick them up. She went back the next day and bought them, and they were even cheaper!! She just dropped them off last week and I am so excited to have them!!! :) Though I’m only keeping two, I’m giving the other set to a friend who has a way bigger Pyrex collection than I could dream of!

Due to the Fab sale, I probably wont be doing much thrifting for a bit. When I do start again I’ll of course share it all here!

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Shop Update: July 13th

I think this is the most excited Ive been about a shop update since I first started casting plastic years ago!

I’ve been doing the same thing for so long, its been nice casting something new! I have been working on these designs for months. prototyping, picking out the right plastic, casting, tweaking the designs and assembling. I have been showing a lot of the process thru Twitter and Instagram if you want to see what all went into this…

This is the first part of the series. Basically the pieces that passed the prototyping and then tweaking process. I’m still working on way more!

This series is all original designs by me, Jessee, that have been 3D printed in glossy plastic. I make a mold of the printed pieces and cast them in plastic, and some of them then get filled with even more plastic! The process takes a lot longer than previous designs, but i’m much happier with the outcome. It’s all worth it to me!

In this update we have new earrings, new necklaces and one new brooch!

If you really love my new pieces, but don’t see the color you like let me know here! For the next 24 hours I will be taking requests for color combinations. I will begin casting them all tomorrow afternoon!

On another note, don’t forget the Adalou Blog is still hosting a giveaway and our Fab sale is still going on… both end Wednesday!!

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Behind The Scenes – July 8th – 12th, 2012

It’s been busy busy here since the Fab.com sale started, so all I have time for today is a few behind the scenes shots. While I was waiting for all the plastic bees and wings to cure, I spent time also working on the new pieces that I will be updating soon!

As you can see, casting plastic is very messy!! ha, a huge colorful mess!

I’ll be back with more photos tomorrow!!

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