Fire Up

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever."

........... Mary Poppins

Okay, so perhaps you don't find this little gorilla beautiful, but there is something that gives me joy every time I hold him. You see, he's one of the members of my lighter collection and fire shoots from his mouth when I push the button.

Pretty cool, huh?

And I have a pig that grunts and has flames come out of his snout...and a firebreathing frog that croaks...and those are just a few of my small collection of kitsch lighters.

I know, glass artists technically are supposed to use strikers. And I generally don't use these lighters for my torch. But there are some days, when I just need a good laugh. I found this cow lighter online which might be suitably amusing to add to the collection too.

Some of my favorites came from an Ace Hardware store. If you don't have them where you live, they are kind of an old school general store that has a little bit of a lot of things. That's where I get my copper wire and tiny corks for vessels too.

So if you see a funny lighter, please post or send me a note so I can see it too. Maybe it will get added to the fledgling collection.

Do you collect something related to your business? I'd love to hear about it. Post links too, if you'd like.

And now that I've talked about my lighters, I guess I'd better go find some fuel so they will work again.

Catch you tomorrow and I promise to talk about glass art. I've got some comments about a product I recently used.