Today, I dashed into town to stock up on essentials, and while there stopped in at DJ’s mother’s house. Well, I’m ashamed to say that a parcel was waiting for me there since Christmas! (You know how it goes, never enough time in a day – especially when we seem to get a blasted snowstorm every third day…)
More later on one of the other goodies just unwrapped, but I had to show you this amazing vase — one of a pair I’m now delighted to be able to call my own.
Wondervase, they call it.
In a flat cardboard package, you find a flat plastic envelope — the medium size is 6″ x 11″ which seems a very useful size. Fill it with very warm water, right up to the top. The bottom flattens out and the whole thing becomes quite surprisingly stable.
So far, so good — but the real fun starts as the plastic warms up and becomes flexible.
You can bend it, fold it, twist it, and generally shape it into the mad funky vase of your dreams…
I can see getting a fistful of these vases and keeping them on hand for garden season — a quick and unusual way to present a gift of home-grown garden flowers to our visitors!
Truth be told, I’ve been playing with this all afternoon…
Tip: The instructions say to pour out the warm water and replace it with cool water, to make the vase hold its strange new shape, but I found it works better just to let it cool down on its own, less of the vacuum effect to suck in the sides — especially if you make the shape very narrow at the top, like this crazy twisted “bud vase” I shaped up around the handle of a wooden spoon.
All I need now is a long-stemmed rose!
When you’re done with the vase, you rinse it out as you would any vase, because you know it’s bound to get a bit gunky inside after a week or so with flowers in it — then soften it up again with warm water and smooth it out flat.
Besides the enormous amount of fun I found this Wondervase thing, it’s a huge bonus just to be able to pop it into a drawer with my dish towels and such. Because if you ever saw the ungodly mess that’s the inside of my china cabinet, you’d know I couldn’t possibly find the shelf space to store an ordinary vase…
That is genius! I love whoever invented this thing. I have broken at least three vases, because they spend more time under my sink than on my counter top, and I am an uber clutz. How cool to be able to just flatten it up and stick it in the drawer!
@Anne, yes, easy to clean because you can get your whole hand inside – no little fiddly brushes, or winding a dishrag around a spoon handle to try for the bottom corner of a narrow-mouthed vase.
@Ken, I’ve lined up one of my crafty young friends to help with the Great “Goes-with” Vase Experiment, when she’s visiting here on spring break.
( “Useless facts” are as meat and bread to us – bring ’em on! :) )
Hey Jen,
Exactly like those! Useless fact for the day: According to a friend of mine who collects Shakers when they fit together they are called goes-withs…
That I can remember that and not pertinent details of my life troubles… when I remember to recall.
cheers,
Ken
Ooooh I like that! Is it easy to clean? This is a child-friendly vase, too, unlike the pretty but problematic crystal that my grandmother gave me.
@Ken, what a fun idea – something like this salt and pepper set…
@Gui, yes, the vases flatten right out into the envelope again when you warm them up – it’s great for storage. And do I have cold water? – you bet! My tap water comes from a well, not from a municipal system, so basically it’s freezing-cold pure spring water from the taps, all year round.
Wow, cool. Can you add warm water and flatten it again when you are not using it aymore? That would be a convenient way of saving space.
By the way, if you don’t want to wait until the water cools and you don’t want the vacuum effect either, I figure you can put a hose deep inside the vase and fill it with tap water bottom up (with some help from convection in fluids).
I figure that living in Canada you can get some really cold water right from the tap at this time of the year, don’t you? :-)
Hi Jen,
Those look great! Have you tried making the two of them hold some sort of interlocking shape? That could be very interesting…
Seriously. I’m still playing with them!
Something like $6.99 for the medium size, by the way, guys… what’s not to love there?
Very cool! I dig these!
wow…now that is really cool.
You always have such amazing things to show us. These do look really neat…or cool (does that date me?!)
Oh my goodness, I COVET that Wondervase. I suppose Valentine’s is coming up… Thanks for the post!
Hey Jen! Long time no visit! (I’m so sorry. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don’t.) I love the idea of these “bags.” They’re so interesting and I can imagine I’d play with them all afternoon as well. I think about you often, as you are one of the first people I happened onto in the Bloggoshere. That makes you special! I often wonder about your fruit trees and the deer…AND your book. Are you finished? Has it been published yet? I’d love to know!