I've spent the last week brushing up on my glass-working skills by making a practice display box. It turned out with a decidedly Victorian flair, which was likely inspired by seeing Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak two weeks ago.

What a wonderful Gothic scary-fairy tale for grown ups! It wasn't so much about ghosts or monsters, as much as it was about monstrous people. I think it had a lot of nuance and reminded me of actual Victorian era crimes of serial killers George Joseph Smith and H.H Holmes. I think the film might have been partly influenced and informed by them. But I digress.

I constructed my practice display case from glass recycled from my old picture frames, and then engraved the door with high-speed diamond tip burs. Making it was a lot of fun: scoring and cutting the glass, soldering it together with brass came and assembling it into a functional object. Twice over. It turns out I'm terrible at measuring. The hinges gave me the most trouble, but I eventually conquered them .Machine glass-engraving is a more recent interest of mine. Last year I wanted to make some monogrammed glass terrariums as Christmas gifts for my family, and decided to try it out and see where it went. Engraving this case was my 3rd engraving project since then and a good exercise for a certain future piece I'm planning.