I love the white skate too!! That is a terrific idea & stars really make it along with the fur!! Gives me that warm & fuzzy feeling you get around holiday time,(I love the holidays)! Thanks for the skate paint answer. I would imagine larger town the price would be a lot more for a table or booth & "regulars" might get the "best" spots. Going somewhere else can be a worry, bad roads, weather turning bad etc. So I would consider all that & having to get up early to get there. Costs involved in going there count against your profits. We did Craft Boutique for 2-3 years in a woman's club & then over to bank we had a room they let us use. After we quit, Tole painting came in & I was still making crafts so our local park had tables to rent so GF & I shared a long table but they didn't do much advertising so we didn't sell much, few customers that came bought something from us but not many came as cold day & they bought little things so we took home most of what we brought. Shortly after that Craft Boutiques became jewelry & company made jams with country looking cloth with ribbon around or made in China stuff with that pulled off & ribbon added,etc.& I lost interest. I haven't been to any this year, few & far between, only couple I would liked to have gone to but had to do other things. Anyway check out distance ,costs before you go & also do you want to do it every year or make a lot extra so you can do your local 1 too. Jan

Its not "carnival" glass as we know it...just irridescent glass. Looks rather new to me....does the cherub hold a magnate? Linda C

Thank you, mitchdesj for your reply. The sort of problem that I'm worried about is leachable metals, like lead, that are ingredients in glazes (and glassware). After doing a quick search on Google, I came up with these two articles: Some imported glassware hazardous FDA Consumer, March, 1990 Several patterns of imported glass tableware sold last spring at Macy's, Nordstrom's, and several other department stores in California, New York, and the Northeast may contain dangerously high levels of lead that can leach into food. The patterns are "Crackle Rim," "Murrina Clear," "Cracked Gold," and "Murrina Transparent Silver" collections of dinner plates, soup plates, bowls, stemware, vases, and ashtrays. Some of these patterns may also be sold as the "Orofolio" collection. Consumers who purchased any of this glassware should immediately stop using it and return it to the store where purchased. Eating off these products or even handling them could cause acute abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea in adults and children, or central nervous system damage in fetuses and small children. Lead leached from samples reached levels higher than 16,000 parts per million (ppm). (Currently, safe levels for ceramic products range from 2.5 to 7 ppm. An FDA proposal now is calling for lowering the allowable limit to 0.1 ppm for some items.) FDA discovered the problem during a routine inspection of a shipment that arrived at the San Francisco port. Other shipments were sent to the New York port. The glassware was manufactured by SI-AN di Cioni & Busoni of Florence, Italy, and sold to various U.S. companies. R.H. Macy Company and other retailers have taken the glassware off their shelves and posted warnings of the danger to alert customers who had purchased the products. ....Here's another article: A rapid lead test: Public outreach and testing to detect leachable lead in ceramic ware Abstract A modification of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lead screening test of ceramic ware was made to screen large numbers of samples in a short time frame. Ceramic ware in use by Davis and Sacramento, California residents was tested. Lead was leached from ceramic ware with citric acid and identified by rhodizonic acid in this quick, qualitative test. Of 92 individual pieces of pottery tested, approximately 6.6% were positive for leachable lead. Approximately 67% of the positive samples were handmade in Mexico. This rapid test is sensitive to two (2) parts per million (ppm, g/g) leachable lead. Ceramic ware with detectable leachable lead levels may present a health risk to individuals who habitually use such items for food storage and/or consumption. Because only 2030 minutes is needed to perform the test, immediate communication of results to the participant is possible. . . . . Both of these articles are at least 10 years old, so maybe the problem no longer exists. However, a good friend just bought a child's lunch box last week from LL Bean which was vinyl on the inside (and made in China). The enclosed directions said to throughly clean the vinyl interior to remove residues from manufacturing. China does not have the regulations in place that keep toxic dangerous compounds like lead out of the air, water, or soil. In fact, food grown in certain areas contains lead, so I try to avoid foods made in China (like honey). This is one of the reasons why stuff from China is cheap. I think you're right about clear glass (is glass naturally clear?). Also, given that I'll be storing stable ingredients like flour and sugar (rather than acidic foods), I think it should be safe. I don't subscribe to women's magazines or health magazines, the newspaper, or watch the news, so I wanted to check here to make certain that what I purchased was food-safe. I'll give them a good scrubbing with lots of hot water and call it a day. Oh, and I think that the lids are aluminum. Thanks again!

I just used one of the small (not mini) pans on the stovetop tonight to create gravy after removing the little roast from the oven. I do have a bunch of the minis too. I had a few and ran into a bunch more at a country auction or second hand store last year for less than a buck apiece. Lars, I have never followed the sizing numbers except to note that larger numbers refer to larger pans. I wouldn't expect even a large Corning Ware to break. However, I also assume that the odds are higher (if small) for failure of the larger sizes. Therefore, I certainly wouldn't load one up with oil for frying; yow-za! I have a large one that I could use for soup to prove a point, but I have a heavy coated steel dutch oven and a couple stainless ones that are at the ready so I would not feel like risking even the small possibility of losing a whole pot of soup. I would certainly deglase that CW pot to make gravy after a large roast. BTW: most of the moderately old CW units are marked under the handle or on the bottom indicating that they may be used on the stove top. Some of the very old units don't say anything, but I believe they will all say 'pyroceram' and they are the original stove safe CW. However, if you find CW that specifically says 'oven safe' or similar, but doesn't also say stove top, then they are not for use on a stove top.