I was recently invited to join Custommade.com, a site where people request specific items to be…. well, custom made! Being part of an organization that promotes actively buying custom made items has been wonderful! Being one of the Makers is an honor and has exposed me to a much wider variety of glass designs and challenges.
I was definitely intrigued when I saw a request for a Nose Shaped Wine Stopper!! Yep, here are some of the versions of the wine stopper below!
My customer John, who was getting hitched recently, wanted this specially made to give to his brother as his Best Man’s gift. Apparently, the size and shape of this brother’s nose has been part of the family history for a long time. John sent an image of his brothers nose to work from, and I really enjoyed learning a little more about nasal anatomy….!
The first images are of my first nose ever, made in glass–or for that matter, made in ANY other medium! (I did make a glass Christmas ornament in the shape of an ear once, as a happy gift for a dear friend who had just gone through some amazing restorative hearing surgery…but that’s another story!)
The wine stoppers I had in stock had really short shafts, and just weren’t going to cut it, so I ended up buying several more with different shaft lengths.
The first big/almost life size nose I made was a bit too cartoonish–definitely wide flaring nares (the hole parts of your nose!) but with a very long and narrow profile…..hmmmm, gotta go back to the flame. Of course, one of the intermediate nose versions I made was really great, just tooooo long for the wine stopper shaft… Rats.
Time to make another one….Well, finally! The third one was definitely the charm!
So now I am just waiting for him to come back from the honeymoon to hear just what the brother and the rest of the family thought of it–I’ll keep you posted as soon as I hear!
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