Don't Laugh! Well, okay, go ahead.

I don't own a cloche.

Well, actually, I do.  But it's knitted, and I wear it on my head in cold weather when I walk the dog.

It is shaped like this hat, below:

That is not me.  That is not even I.
But my hat is the shape of her hat.
Cloche-shaped.

The cloche that I don't own is made of glass, and is modeled after the garden cloches of the Victorian era,

those mini-microcosmic greenhouse bells, that would coax delicate plants to survive in too-cold weather.

Rather like my knitted hat does for my head.

But today is the Cloche Party at Marty's A Stroll Thru Life blog, and I have always gotten

such a kick out of looking at everyone else's cloche vignettes that I thought I'd give it a whirl.

IF I had a cloche.

Necessity being Invention's Baby Mama, I took the closest thing I could find -- 

my grandmother's cheese dome -- and hired it as a cloche pinch-hitter.

I tried fitting the dog underneath, because he would look so darling under glass,

but alas! his head is too blocky and big.

 Plus, he kind of objected.

 So I resorted to inanimate objects.

Like this little metal pumpkin, and some fake bittersweet that I had to jam under the dome.

 I'm beginning to think a bigger cloche is the way to go.

Rudy, our resident ghost, wasn't any more pleased than Dion to be put under glass.

I think he looks pretty nifty, reflected twice in the carved circle cut into the glass.

Plus, you can see through him!  Yikes, he may really be a ghost.

Note his spiffy new comb-over hairdo.  He saw it on TV and wanted to try it.

 Antiques experts, where are you?  Marydon, you out there?

This cheese dome shows the scratches of age and use on the plate base.

It is cut with circles and stars, and there are some bubbles here and there in the glass.

 The dome top is heavy, and the finial handle is applied.

It does have a crack from one side of the handle to the other; it's had that crack as long as I can remember.

 I know nothing about its origins, except that my grandmother bought it used.

She said it was already old when she bought it, and she set up housekeeping in 1900.

It's not large; not much fits beneath.

But my last cheese cloche vignette is the one you've been waiting for . . . 

it Gives Thanks because this silly post is over!

For some real cloche vignettes, with wonderful ideas for your own decorating,

visit Marty at her A Stroll Thru Life blog, for her Cloche Party on Tablescape Tuesday.

Click here!

Can you stand one more Halloween picture?  Or two?

This one is our nephew Garrett, holding his year-old twin boys on Halloween.

 Calvin on the left, Luke on the right.  How cute are they?

Our daughter Anne teaches Theatrical Makeup at the university where she's a grad student.

Yesterday she did a quick demo of a scarecrow face on herself, for her class.

I think the purple brings out the hazel in her eyes.  :-P

The snow is still melting here, but we are seeing grass.

Woo-hoo! -- Cass

Thanks to The Graphics Fairy for the image of the vintage glass garden cloche.