Search Results for: glass floats

Glass Fishing Floats for the Holidays

Sorry to be so MIA, but I have been constantly in motion for the last month – both physically and geographically, but also emotionally, quite frenetically. Not quite ready to talk about any of that yet, but it, along with jet lag and poor internet access, has led to an inability to get posts out in a timely manner. It hasn’t helped that we landed at JFK the morning of the Newtown massacre and that subsequently left me utterly too disheartened to write.

Recent posts on ami, the Japanese fish net pattern, and even a photo in my last post of a great glass fishing float perched on an itomaki silk spool, reminded me that I had an unfinished post on one of my most popular topics still in the hopper. I realized I had a lot of images that pertained to the holidays, so what better way to add a little cheer than some vintage Japanese glass fishing floats for Christmas?

Small floats look wonderful lined up along a windowsill to catch the light, highlighting the variations in color and form.

The sun streaming through the colors is magical.

Look at how it lights up this pair of rare amber ones I recently found.

Bottle and float pairings are always perfect and the glass was designed to be exposed to the elements, so catching the sun’s rays outside is another great way to display them.

Colorwise, vintage ball jars make great companions.

Here they have been grouped to great effect for a gorgeous holiday display!

I know this is actually the powder room mirror in this photo, but doesn’t it look just like a sparkly silver modern wreath?

Small floats were designed to be strung together in their nets for use.

Seeing these working photos makes me think they would make great garlands on a tree or strung in front of a fireplace.

As ornaments anyone? Amazing photo, no??

Of course it turns out there are a number of great DIY tutorials on how to turn simple glass Christmas ornaments into ones that look like floats, from this one at Sand and Sisal…

…to this one over at Matsutake.

Can’t resist including this photo that has been circling the internet all month – a fairly “alternative” tree in a gorgeous glass bottle!

As for upcoming parties and hostess gifts, if you are in a float mood, how about bringing your wine in a bottle net from Alder & Co. They’re even made in Japan and knotted in the traditional manner!

Obviously I have tons of older glass fishing float posts – just click the glass category on the right if you’d like to read them!

Have the Merriest Christmas and a wonderful New Year! I’m headed to (hopefully) sunny warm Florida, where there are always great antiques and design shops to report on, so you may as yet be hearing from me before 2012 is out.

Image credits: 1. The New York Times, photo credit: Bruce Buck, 2-3. me, 4. via The Dirty Deets, 5. via Scrambled Preserved Fried Cured, 6. via Patina White, 7. Coastal Living, 8-10. from my files, no credits available, 11. Sand and Sisal, 12. Matsutake, 13. via Remodelista, 14. via Alder & Co.

Dec 23, 2012 By tokyojinja in DIY, Glass Tags: Christmas, glass bottles, glass canisters, holiday, Japanese glass floats, senbei canister, vintage glass

Everyone Loves Japanese Glass Fishing Floats…A Follow Up

Move over Tom Scheerer and Steven Gambrel, Tokyo Jinja readers are collecting glass floats and displaying them in their homes. I’ve given up on getting mine back to the US right now so I have combined it with my ever-growing collection of Japanese glass bottles.

One Tokyo reader got lucky at the Oedo Antique Market just a week or so ago. She scored a medium size float with its original net and a handful of small ones. I just love the way she displays them on the shelves, with her books organized by color – it makes for such a soothing composition.

The husband of a reader in Singapore knew how obsessed his wife was with floats that for Christmas he bought her a group from a dealer in Alaska. Simultaneously, a friend gave her a bowl from Core Bamboo. She’s combined the two and displays them on a woven Laotian textile in her living room.

Blue & White’s Amy Katoh displays her floats in a senbei (rice cracker) canister on her window overlooking the Sumida River.

And for the most unusual placement, this float joins sea glass on the bathroom wall at Amy’s Tokiwa house.

Elsewhere in the internet, Brooke Giannetti of Velvet & Linen has just posted photos of the Gilt Home Showhouse room she and her husband designed in support of the Demi and Ashton Kutcher Foundation, which raises money to combat human trafficking. Using paintings by her husband Steve and items from her shop Giannetti Home, they created an artist’s studio.

She used a grouping of floats in a covered glass apothecary-style jar, as one of the main decorative items on the coffee table.

Along with the paintings, they really make the blue and aqua tones in the room sing!

For my earlier posts on glass fishing floats please take a look at:

Photo credits: 1. me, 2. A. Ridge, 3. A. Wilhoit, 4 & 5. Amy Katoh, 6 & 7. Brooke Giannetti

Feb 13, 2011 By tokyojinja in Glass Tags: glass bottles, Japanese glass floats

The Mail is Always Late…more on Japanese Glass Fishing Floats and Sudare

One of the disadvantages of living in Tokyo is that magazines are hard to come by. International subscriptions are expensive and often arrive well after they do on the newsstands back in their originating country. So of course I got the November House Beautiful the day after I wrote my last post on the glass float and bottle I found at the Kawagoe shrine sale, and it was full of images I wanted to share. So here are a few, just a little bit late…

Peter Dunham, another favorite designer of mine, featured a beautiful greenish glass bottle on the counter of the kitchen in this L.A. home he designed. He also used a number of clear giant bottle lamps in the living room and bedrooms.

And in the same issue, designer Steven Gambrel seems to have gone shopping with Tom Scheerer for the glass float lamp in his front entryway.

That photo jogged my memory and sent me scurrying to page through Gambrel’s portfolio. Voila, he uses the same lamp in a boy’s room in a Long Island Beach house. Gotta love the nautical maps made into wallpaper.

He also uses a giant glass bottle in the entryway of the same home. Perhaps he and Mr. Scheerer need to duke it out for the “king of the glass bottle” title.

One more from another beach house on Long Island that he designed – this one in Bridgehampton – with two huge blue glass fishing floats.

And finally, Gambrel does a double whammy in his own Sag Harbor house, using a glass float and the netted lamp together.

On another note, I also just got my hands on the October issue of The World of Interiors. It featured an amazing new house on the Costa del Sol, built by Studio Peregalli Sartori to look as if had “the patina of the past”. While the entire house is rich with antique architectural elements, the tower bathroom is my favorite with its magical old world elegance. There is great tension between the coolness of the white fixtures and the marble floor contrasted with the warmth of the Moroccan tiles and the Japanese sudare blinds covering the windows. For more on sudare, check out my post here.

I think I could really live in that bathroom…

Image credits: 1 & 2. House Beautiful November 2010, 1. photo credit: Victoria Pearson, 2. photo credit: Steven Gambrel, 3-6. Steven Gambrel , 7 & 8. The World of Interiors October 2010, photo credit: Roland Beaufre

Nov 3, 2010 By tokyojinja in Glass, Interior Design Tags: Japanese glass floats, Peter Dunham, Steven Gambrel, sudare

Recently Spotted…Slag Glass

So both the summer issues of House Beautiful and Elle Decor feature a styling accessory that will be dear to my glass obsessed readers hearts – slag glass, lumps of leftovers from the glass blower’s furnace at the end of the day. Like Japanese glass fishing floats and bottles, they are essentially found objects that brings in that translucent watery blue-green color just perfect for beach house interiors.

Both spaces feature a ton of interesting details, like the knotted rope window treatments and the upside down industrial baskets-turned coffee tables in the Marin County, California house below. This space is full of fabulous re-purposing! The rest of the house is no less fascinating – a must view – including a fabulous bunk room and kitchen window-deck pass through. You’ll be seeing more of it here on the blog in coming weeks.

The Amagansett home in Elle Decor is the very best kind of casual warm modern, but it is the slag glass on the table that pulls this room together and links the inside to the exterior. The soft shimmery colors and rustic curiosities lift the house out of an ordinary mid-century modern design – be sure to see the rest of it here.

What is it about water colored glass that speaks to us so strongly? And why am I so sure there are going to be lots of google, eBay and Etsy searches for it in the coming months?

Image credits: 1. House Beautiful July/August 2012, photo credit: Alec Hemer, 2. Elle Decor July/August 2012, photo credit: Jason Schmidt

Jul 11, 2012 By tokyojinja in Glass, Interior Design Tags: beach house, fishing floats, glass, slag glass

Sheer Simplicity…More Japanese Glass Fishing Float Displays

My posts on Japanese glass fishing floats are some of my most popular posts. Lately I haven’t had to look far for photos featuring them as readers have been sending me their own displays or those they have seen elsewhere. Hawaii seems to be a common place to find them, which makes sense as they wash up on the beaches. This photo was taken at the historic Shipman House Bed & Breakfast in Hilo, a gorgeous Victorian house on the Big Island.

I also had a mention of the float display behind the bar at the Monkeypod Restaurant in Maui. Impressive!

Most of the recent examples have been charming in their simplicity, with a few floats grouped in a spare interior to great effect. This reader has placed hers under the simplest of lucite tables.

Glass floats and fuzzy sheepskin in the same space – kind of an oxymoron, don’t you think? But so lovely, nonetheless…

…reminding me of this reader’s simple modern arrangement.

South African designer John Jacob has used a few floats in this gorgeous project. I have only pulled the photos that highlight the floats but his entire portfolio is drool-worthy and well worth perusing.

All stand out in contrast to the only floats I saw over the holidays – these in the gift shop window at Universal Studios (remember those family commitments that kept me from antiquing in Florida?) Ahoy matey!

Image credits: 1. L. Rogers, 2. via Monkeypod Restaurant, 3. S. Bloomer, 4. Moda Bagno & Interni Store by K-Studio via Design Milk, 5. M. Smith, 6-7 John Jacobs Interiors, 8. me.

Jan 13, 2012 By tokyojinja in Glass, Interior Design, Shrine Sales and Flea Markets Tags: fishing floats, Japanese glass floats, John Jacobs

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