whichcraft: Glass V. Glass

Hello and good afternoon!

A nice sunny day here in India. :)

Yesterday I accompanied my mum to the plant nursery to get some plants for home and I couldn't help picking up a bag of glass stones.

These looked like distant cousins of the super refined glass domes and it made me wonder if I could use them like how I use the glass domes, i.e. make embellishments for projects out of it..

So let's have a look at these... (loads of pics!)

The first thing that I did was cut open my bag of stones and laid them out on my cutting mat.

There were a total of 100 stones in the bag, and out of that around 10 were broken, chipped, some had air bubbles trapped inside, so after removing them I was left with 90 stones.

On the other hand, I had my teeny tiny bag of the expensive and fancy glass domes.. so I took that out for a comparison...

Why expensive, you ask? Well, because this bag of glass stones from the nursery cost me Rs. 100/- whereas 5 glass domes of size 18 mm cost me approx. Rs. 50/-.

I know, I know, your immediate reaction would be, woah... that is EXPENSIVE! Chuck the fancy domes, we're gonna buy them stones... but bear with me... I think you will change your decision by the time we reach the end of this post. :)

So I laid out the domes against the huge army of glass pebbles (I think those fancy domes look a little intimidated in the pic, don't you think? Lol!) ^__^

My observations are as follows :
1. The glass pebble is a whole lot more chunkier than the glass dome.
It also has an uneven size, i.e. it is not a perfect round. They also were not clear and transparent, they looked a little dull and pale with some stones having a slight hint of yellow and orange color running through them.

2. As compared to the pebbles, the glass domes have a perfect finish, have a slimmer body and are crystal clear.

3. When I bought the bag of glass stones, some were chipped, cracked etc. which I separated when I did the sorting.
On the other hand, when I bought the glass domes, they were packed perfectly with all pieces in excellent condition i.e. there was no damage found.

4. When I put the stones against light and dark backgrounds, you can see, that the image that we could see through the glass pebble was murky and blurry, whereas the one through the dome was crystal clear.

5. Adhering both (the pebble and the dome) was super easy, I used red tacky tape to do it and both stayed put (in place).

Final conclusion : Always, always, always go for quality over quantity. That is what I have always believed in and therefore I would suggest you no different.

As a person who regularly makes cards, and even manages to sell some, I would recommend, spend that extra money and buy the high quality glass domes. Their crystal clear clarity and smooth finish will enable you to make good quality embellishments for your projects.

The glass pebbles, to be honest, will just look sub-standard and unprofessional.

Disclaimer : All the views in this blogpost are mine and mine alone, I was not influenced or paid to do this review, I just did it because I realized a lot of people thought that these looked the same and didn't think that the price was justified.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the same.
Thank you for stopping by! :)

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