Secret Project number twenty-five

Hello Internet, its me, Kate. This week's Secret Project comes from a girl we like to call Pam. Pam and I grew up together, very near to each other in fact. We shared a wall, and a bathroom, although we didn't always share nicely. Pam is my sister, and her name is really Liz (but... if we're getting technical, and we might as well, her REAL real name is Kelly Elizabeth, but at some moment in early elementary school, she decided she liked her middle name more than her first name. So she is a girl with a first name that goes by her middle name, which is often shortened to Liz).

But I sometimes call her Pam, for other reasons, which I've blogged about before. Anyway, she surprised me this week with a little Secret Project of her own,  and I was so busy working on other Secret Project angles, I didn't even see this one coming.

Enjoy!


My Vintage Glass Lamp

Sea glass is something I have treasured ever since I was a little girl. I have always loved to walk along beaches with a bucket in hand looking for the perfectly sanded edges. This collection has been with me for years, and I finally figured out what to do with it.

I wanted to put it on display in a way I could enjoy it daily. I found this vintage glass lamp at the Goodwill for $7.99. I sanded the brass and painted it white with a metal spray paint. I bought a new electrical cord and outlet. After cleaning the sand off of the collected glass I filled up the glass lamp.

I cleaned all of the glass in a large metal bowl of hot water... I wiped each piece down with a dry towel, dried it off, and placed it in a clean pile! No sand or seaweed was allowed in this project. I didn't sort the pieces by color for placement in the lamp. Just when I made piles of them to remember where each piece was from. 


Every single glass piece is important to me, because it has come from beaches all over the world. From the shores of Pawley Beach in North Carolina, to Melbourne Beach in Florida. To the Oregon coast on the shore in front of Moe's restaurant. There are pieces from the Seattle shores of Alki Beach, and Golden Gardens. There are even very treasured pieces from Cinque Terra, Italy that I found when I went to visit Kate in Rome. There are pieces I picked up during regattas in college. Some from the New Jersey shore, Tennessee, even from the rivers of Philadelphia.

It was funny when all the pieces were piled together, I could still pick out a piece and remember where I found it. There is a story and memory attached to each shard of glass. Where was this tiny piece originally from? was it a bottle? Was it a window? What was the story, how far did it travel?  Where did it come from? Wouldn't it be amazing to know the pieces original origin?