A Night of Miniature Marvels

In the midst of all the wrapping paper and visitors and the flurry of everything else that happens around the holidays, all of us at the shop take one evening each December to share a nice meal and have our annual ornament swap, white elephant style with numbers drawn from a hat and rambunctious trading. Here are some pictures of half a dozen treasures from the big night. I took these photos at home of the ones Duncan and I took to the dinner, and of the ones our family brought home. The ones we didn't capture were just as whimsical and fun.

The mother and child ornament at the top was my contribution to the evening, a combination of felting and other fiber arts with some doll faces and hands. Julie brought us an adorable cotton batting bird this year. The little peep has a baguette under her wing because she's heading to Paris next year!




Shari felted a sweet star ornament, and as luck would have it, my younger daughter opened it, much to both her and Shari's delight.







John's candy box ship, finished with crepe paper and Dresden trim and flying an iridescent sail, was the first ornament to be opened. It was also at the center of the final surprise of the evening when my older daughter nabbed it after nearly an hour of patient and polite plotting!

Mr. Marsh added to the pile a handmade (and fully loaded) bill holder that could come in handy on a rainy day, and Duncan was glad to take it home.

As for Duncan's gift to us, he brought a precious miniature tea house made of balsa wood and topped with a fresh layer of mica snow. Inside the house an electric tea light flickered, enchanting everyone so much with its cozy glow that this ornament was one of the most actively swapped all night.

Shooting Stars and Silver Bells

This Thursday night we will have our final class of the year in the Studio for the Imagination, the second of John McRae's Heirloom Christmas Ornaments class (Two seats left as of this writing.) John is bringing in some vintage silver ball and bell ornaments and a trove of glittery adornments (including bullion, tinsel, scrap, and other goodies) for them. Take a look at these photos of the ornaments John and his students made last at last week's class. I'm sure the ones this week will be just as dazzling.

Holidays Are Here!

Watch the video to fly among the branches of our Christmas tree!

Heavenly Bodies

Here are some photos from the first of two Angel Tree Topper classes John McRae is teaching at Castle in the Air (the second class is tonight). Students begin with a special copper and wood armature finished with painted paper mache arms and heads pressed from 100-year-old molds. To this, they add a cotton batting gown dusted with vintage mica snow, then decorate their angels with stars, orbs, and other celestial accouterments.

In classical thought, angels are said to dwell in the space beyond the stars we see every night. Having seen these heavenly bodies in person, we have to agree!

Batting Birds

John McRae and Ulla Milbrath were talking about taxidermied birds this week, so today John brought in his collection of antique cotton batting birds, all perched on a glittery branch he made himself.

John says these chirpers are probably from the 1920s or 1930s, with batting bodies and legs made of stiff wire, then wrapped with finer gold wire to simulate the scaling of actual birds' legs.

Today, these birds' natural habitat is in antique shops or at the flea market, sold in actual bird cages! Originally they could have been Christmas tree ornaments from a time when the Christmas tree was decorated with the accouterments of spring, a magic spell to make a wish for winter's end come true.

They're getting a bit worn with age, but John says that just helps them look more like their taxidermied cousins.

Christmas in August!

Yesterday John and I went to Golden Glow of Christmas Past, an annual gathering of Christmas connoisseurs. Hundreds of collectors of antique Christmas ornaments converged in Sacramento to shop, attend talks and workshops, and witness room-sized displays of holiday treasures. I first heard about Golden Glow from an Italian ornament artisan when I was in Europe earlier this year. Even though the show travels to a new city every year, it was pure luck that this year it was in Sacramento, not far from Berkeley. We had so much fun that John and I are going back this Saturday to socialize and attend a banquet and special events.



















The pictures here are of a special Christmas optical toy John made. A convex mirror at one end makes the wintry scene seem much larger. It seems Santa Claus is already awake and on the move!

Ornament Swapping at the Townhouse

This past Friday the Castle in the Air staff gathered for our annual holiday dinner and ornament swap. We celebrated at the Townhouse Bar & Grill in Emeryville, a cozy gathering place with a colorful history not far from the shop.

Everyone at Castle in the Air is an amazing artist, and the ornament swap is our chance to honor that and enjoy the creativity and camaraderie we all share. The hours (sometimes days) of preparation of each ornament is also a lovely gift to give oneself during the holidays, when it's easy to get swept away tending to our loved ones.

On the night of the swap, all the ornaments are brought to dinner wrapped in gift boxes and places at the center of the table. We all draw numbers from a hat, and whoever gets "1" gets to open a package from the pile. We move on through "2," "3," and so on, and each person has the chance to open an unwrapped package or appropriate someone else's ornament. High stakes!

Each of us has our own artistic personality that is reflected in the ornament we make. Shari made an adorable matchbox miniature, John an optical illusion Santa scene using a convex mirror and Victorian scrap. Daniel's decoupaged gnome ornament was actually a box full of holiday treasures. Maggie took a glass ball and seed beads and made an ornate Victorian lampshade. Julie's Elizabethan bird was made of samples of nearly every delightful supply we carry. Fantastic! I brought the Mad Hatter (with butter in his pocket watch) and his friend the March Hare. Even my husband and kids got in on the fun, with spectacular result. I wish all the photos from the evening came out so you could see.

It's really magical to watch as each person opens their package and reveals a little holiday wonder. We all take some of that magic home at the end of the night!

The Great Glass Pickle Pursuit

Among the hundreds and hundreds of decorations hanging from the Christmas tree here at Castle in the Air, there is one which stands out from the rest. Or perhaps it is better to say, it doesn't stand out. That decoration is our humble pickle, a glass ornament with a peculiar legend surrounding it.

The pickle ornament has been hung from the Christmas tree for generations, a tradition which has passed to America from Germany. The first family child to find the pickle ornament on the tree gets the honor of an additional gift from Saint Nicholas on Christmas Day, and the first adult is bestowed with good luck for the coming year.

Or so we thought! Following a bit of research on the subject, we discovered that we'd been tricked about the history of the pickle ornament. Apparently, hardly anyone in Germany observes this tradition, or has even heard of it. Furthermore, Saint Nick visits German children much earlier in December than Christmas, and the children open presents on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. (We're hoping against hope that the good luck for grown-ups legend is true, though!)

But aren't debunkers such party-poopers? They just want to take the fun and mystery out of life. To counteract their naysaying, Castle in the Air hereby inaugurates the Great Glass Pickle Pursuit. To take part in the G.G.P.P., simply visit our Online Shoppe and find the special glass pickle ornament we've hidden there. Don't be fooled by the ornament listed along with all our German glass ornaments -- the pickle you're looking for is special. You'll know it when you see it.

And your prize? Between now and Christmas (or until we run out of pickles), any customer who finds our special hidden pickle will be entitled to purchase one special pickle ornament for only six cents, with purchase of one or more regularly-priced items. And that's no myth! Good luck!

Glass from the Past

Today was one of the most fun and surprising days leading up to Christmastime at Castle in the Air, because today we opened up the a dozen boxes of German glass ornaments we had been keeping in storage for nearly twenty years. We oohed and ahhed as we carefully unwrapped each ornament from companies such as Old World Christmas, Christopher Radko, Polonaise, Christborn, and Dresden Dove. The color, whimsy, and imagination in each of the ornaments is really amazing. What's more, these vintage decorations are now sought-after collector's items which will make Castle in the Air even more of a destination for all the Santas this year. The ornaments from just one box took up all of our studio table space as we sorted and labeled them for sale.

One of the boxes contained a set of samples from Old World showing how progressive coats of paint are put on the ornaments. Between blowing the glass and painting this involved process takes seven days, but the meticulous work pays off with a stunning ornament for the tree. The long stems are a part of each piece up until the end. As many manufacturers of German glass ornaments are family-run cottage industries, the task of trimming the stem with a pen knife often falls to the children of the house.

Christmas is coming!

This past January, we traveled to Germany to meet with a family of artisans who blow and hand-paint the most gorgeous glass ornaments. When they mentioned that they had a mold to make gnome decorations, we jumped at the chance to have some custom gnomes that would be a perfect match for Castle in the Air.

Our gnomes are outfitted with green jackets and mushroom caps to blend in with the scenery as they take an afternoon stroll on Christmas or New Year's Day, spreading cheer and good luck wherever they go.

The gnomes were in one of seven giant boxes of ornaments that arrived at the shop on Friday amidst a flurry of candy and costumed children trick-or-treating up and down Fourth Street. You might think it strange for us to get excited about the winter holidays in the middle of Halloween, but we feel just like kids on Christmas morning every time an order like this arrives.