Red Stripe and Rectangles

My wife and I recently met up with a couple of friends we'd not seen in quite some time, so it was only fitting we all go to a bar in town we'd not been to in quite some time either, The Cabooze.  While there I noticed many people drinking enormous Red Stripe lagers, turns out they're 24 ouncers, and with a PAINTED LABEL!  If you've visited this blog in the past you may then know, old windows and bottles with painted labels always catch my eye, and I had to have a few of those bottles. 

It's a strange thing, sneaking empty bottles out of a bar.  I'm not sure "sneaking" was even necessary, and I don't know what I would have said had someone stopped us ("no, no, see what I do with them, Mr. 400 pound bouncer, is I melt them flat in my kiln and attach them to old windows"), they were empty after all, and between my friends, my wife, and me, we got four of them out, and it felt a bit odd.  But I can report that I've used a couple of my "smuggled" Red Stripe bottles, slumped them, and created a new strain of Sunflower to slip inside each.  From Red Stripe bottles comes the Red Stripe sunflower. All on a full sized storm window given to me by a coworker

Also new today, a series of colorful squares and rectangles on an old kitchen window that sat partially started for several months in my basement

And a small (about 14 x 8 inch) set of row houses on a frame of cedar left from the construction of a fence last summer