Maybe the coolest pieces in decorating is the glass cloche. A glass cloche is a clear glass dome that covers a piece and lends it protection and importance. The glass cloche takes an ordinary anything (flower bloom, seashell, travel souvenir) and elevates it into an objet d’art (and keeps it dust-free!). Long a secret weapon in the decorator’s arsenal, a simple glass cloche gives an interior a effortlessly refined air. And I think they’re just beautiful.
Now, being a tightwad, I am not running out to Pottery Barn and buying the glass cloches I covet. No, no, no, no. Instead I sit around thinking of a cheater version of the decorator cloche so I can get my fix. So, sitting one day: Eureka! I figured it out! I would pick up one of those ubiquitous old-fashioned cheese sets that I see at garage sales. I’ve never seen one in use, but I see them every weekend on folding tables in garages: marble rounds set on a small wood tray with a glass dome that fits over the marble to protect the cheese (from mice?). The glass domes are smaller than cloches from import stores, but these will be charming with small elements on your table.
I found this one at a garage sale for 50 cents. I know it doesn’t look like much with the other pieces in the set, but it was just what I was looking for.
As fall rolls around, I find that my kids and I bring the outdoors in: pinecones, seedpods, pretty oak leaves, and mini pumpkins. Placing a glass cloche over any of these elements gives them a Natural History Specimen swagger. And the glass cloche can stay ouy all year covering Chrismas’s Moravian stars and bottle brush trees, Spring’s bird nests, and Summer’s seashells and coral. So, so effortlessly chic!
There is a side-note to this Great Finds tale. My friend (who shall remain nameless. Sara.) was cleaning out her house last year and offered me “one of those cheese trays with the glass dome.” When I told her about my 1970’s Cheese Cloche into 2010 Chic Cloche idea, she said, “Oh! That’s a great idea!” Um. Yeah. I don’t think I even need to say it, but she never did give me her old cheese set (WITH GLASS DOME). Thanks, Sara.
Handmade by Anne Potter 