Saturday, December 13, 2008

Holiday Crafts Fairs


Last Saturday, the local paper listed at least three Crafts Fairs running simultaneously in Willits, and there will be another one at the Community Center today. The offerings are all home-made gifts and decorations, and often baked goods as well. Some of the more unusual items I saw were these antique glass insulators converted into electric lamps. The insulators were used on telephone poles to separate the wires from the wood brackets with non-conducting glass. With these, the screw-on opening at the bottom holds the light element, strung through the turned wood base the crafters made for each.

I also encountered a competing photographer on the job!

9 comments:

Dina said...

Quite ingenious lamps.
What a sweet young phtographer.

Hilda said...

Did you go to all the crafts fairs? They sound absolutely wonderful! Nothing like handmade, especially when crafters turn their mind to recycling and reusing old materials. These lamps are a great idea.

I think you're about to be unseated from your Willits photoblog throne. ;D

Laurie Allee said...

I love looking at something beautiful... but not being quite sure what it is. That's what happened when I saw this photo.

Saretta said...

Unusual, but attractive! The best things are!

Petrea Burchard said...

I love these! I used to think I was going to collect insulators, but never really did. But I love the lamps. Your shot is great, very colorful.

Kym said...

Those are beautiful! And I like your competition.

USelaine said...

Dina - I had never seen these before, which is rare at a crafts fair.

Hilda - I went to two of them, but this was the only one where I could make something of the dull, auditorium light.

Laurie and Saretta - They almost look like chess markers with strings attached.

Petrea - My mom had a few lavender-colored ones on the window sill years ago, but I don't know what she did with them. I remember someone telling me that some colorless glass like these would turn purple with time and exposure to the sun, like you see with those glass bricks embedded in the sidewalks to provide some light to basement rooms below. (Those were pointed out to me in LA, and I've loved finding them ever since.)

Kym - He was a little hot-shot! He had a fancier camera too, and held it still as a pro.

Thanks everybody!

Kris McCracken said...

I am extraordinarily crap at crafts.

You should see the "horse" that Henry and I made the other day.

It looks like a demented Ottoman (a footrest, not a Turk).

Troop 1309 said...

That is a great idea. I have several of those old insulators that sit on shelf.