You Can't Judge a Tote By an Outside Photo - Or a Book By It's Cover

I don't look at what is for sale on the online local yard sale sites very often. I also don't buy anything off them if I do look at the sites. I find that not having funds, and being in a mind set of wanting to clean out my house, makes me look at things differently than other people. I think some things are "Cool" or I think that maybe I could use that item, but at those times, I think if that item would be used enough to change my life, verses having to store it and finding a place for it for the those few times I would use the item.

Being in the situation I am currently, 9 out of 10 times when looking at buying something, I choose to not get the item as it would not help me more than it would just be stored, which in turn, causes more clutter and stress. 

However, this past week, I saw a post where someone was giving away "broken glass" in five totes. In my head I thought, "I love those flip top totes and they are about $5 each to buy. Maybe I will just take the glass and throw it out if no one else has taken it and keep the totes to use." I contacted the lady and she said she still had the glass and they had moved and so it was helpful for me to take the glass. 

I met her husband at the home they were moving from and got the totes loaded into my car as they were heavy. On the way to their home, which was about a 10 min drive, I thought maybe my niece would be interested in using the glass for her pottery or art. I have posted many times about my talented niece who is an amazing artist. No matter what she touches, she turns it into art. Here is a post about her art and there are a few links in it about her amazingly talented family.

I called my sister, who talked to her daughter, and was told she was excited about the glass. I don't think they had any idea of how much glass their was. I didn't look at the glass when I picked it up, as when I arrived, they were literally waiting outside with the totes to load them in my car for me as they were heavy large totes. Instead of taking the totes home, I took them to my sisters, who lived 10 minutes in the other direction, and dropped off all the stuff at her home. She gave me two empty totes in trade and my niece got excited when we opened the first tote and it was all lavender antique glass pieces! 

When we opened the other totes, it was clear green glass, clear blue glass, clear yellow and orange glass, and one full of pottery, china, porcelain etc. There were two full totes full of whitish crystal and one was full of pink clear glass.  The last little container was broken blue and white pottery / dishes that are that antique blue plate.

When I saw the glass, I thought, "Dang, I should have looked at it first" as it is valuable glass. In my head, the way the lady put the add on the yard sale site, I thought it was modern broken dishes. I guess the mother had died and she had been collecting the glass in her life and used it to make paving stones. They even threw in the mold and plaster for making the paving stones! 

I think the glass could be used to make some cool stained glass windows as the patterns on the clear glass are really fun! The woman seriously had to have collected her entire life to amass such a large amount of that antique glass! 

It was cold and dark when I dropped off the totes, and I forgot to take some photos, so I asked my niece to send me some pictures. She sent photos of the top totes as they are heavy and she didn't want to get to the bottom totes, so the photos are of the lavender and blue / green totes and the little tote of blue plate. 

In the pottery / porcelain tote, there was Aztec pottery as well. It is so interesting to see and visualize all the things that could be made out of the glass. I told my niece about an artist I saw at a craft festival who used those pieces of colored glass to make "windows" and how beautiful they are. I also think that ground into fun shapes and laced with silver, they would be beautiful pieces of jewelry. 

I looked online, and bags of this type of broken glass sell for about $17 a bag! I also thought back to when we were cleaning out my mothers home. She was an artist and she had boxes of broken and ground colored glass. Since we were on a time crunch, we threw it all out instead of giving it to someone who could have used it. I have always felt guilty about trashing that glass as it represented years of her life. I remember a piece of art she made of an underwater scene using the crushed glass as the water using different hews to make it look in areas that the sun was coming through the water, or shadows with the darker colored glass. I remember always being fascinated how she put little real dried sea horses swimming in the glass and little sand dollars and other sea creatures in the glass "water." 

I felt like today I was getting a "redo" on that moment as I saved all this beautiful glass from being thrown in the trash and am giving it a chance to be used for something beautiful. I shared with my sister that they could also donated the glass to a glass blowing / stained glass window studio if they decided not to use the glass, as there are people who would value that glass. 

I found it interesting that people judged the "Totes" of broken glass as not having value because the woman didn't show what was inside the tote. If she had taken pictures of the inside of the totes and show the glass, I know there would have been many people that would have wanted the totes. However, since she just posted, "broken glass for mosaics" I think people pictured modern dishes as I did. 

It made me ponder on how in life we judge others on how someone "labels" them, or on outside visual looks rather than looking deeper and finding out for ourselves what the value of that person is inside. We take the "label" that others give the person or thing, and accept their judgements and beliefs rather than being open to different views and opinions, or just accepting the value that person has just for being a child of God, or for what they may have done and contributed, verse the judgement of outside looks. 

It was at this point in my thoughts that I texted my niece and had her take some pictures of the glass so I could do a blog post about the glass as it brought up these things that made me ponder. I wish she had used a flash so you could see the beautiful colors of the glass, but just know that there are some beautiful patterns and fun writing on the glass and the colors are beautiful! 

So, I am grateful for the little adventure I had today saving the glass from the dumpster, and also learning that little lesson again, to not judge a book by its cover, or more appropriately, not judging a tote by what it looks like on the outside and how others label them!                          

Have a blessed day!