Significant Object: Sweet Tooth

This little sweetie is one of my most prized possessions. I won this Sweet Tooth candy dish on Ebay last March, after spotting something similar in the pages of Domino magazine years before. I searched every flea market stall, Etsy vintage shop, and dusty antique purveyor I happened upon, and finally my hard work paid off. One of the best things about finding once treasured cast-offs like this—besides the sweet, sweet victory—is imagining the life the object had before landing in my covetous hands.

Did it once reside on the desk of a dentist with a wry sense of humor? Though surely not filled with sugar rewards, but more likely, those cheap tin rings they used to hand out to kids for good behavior. Or did it ever corral the loose brown pennies on an old granny's dresser top? I can also imagine a young boy stashing all of his most important artifacts inside the tooth's cavity; flat rocks, rusty bottle caps, spiked jacks, sticky wooden ice cream spoons—because you never know when one of those might come in handy—and that superball he fished out of the neighbor's pool drain, found floating next to a dead frog.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever washed it out...


- Cathleen

Kashigata Molds

Sparrow, $35 via VintageFromJapan on Etsy

Kashigata are Japanese hand-carved cake molds used to make traditional edible gifts. These beautiful molds, from VintageFromJapan on Etsy, can still be used to make small sweets of your own, or paperclay ornaments, or would even look quite lovely up on a kitchen shelf. The origin story from their site: 

"Often made of sakura (cherry wood) and seasoned for about 3 years before carving, kashigata were used to make dried confectionery made of rice flour and sugar called rakugan. Earliest records show that this practice dates back to the mid-17th century. These confections were used as offerings and snacks for celebratory occasions and even unfortunate events. For example when a person died, it was expensive to give flowers or fresh food so, people made these sweets in the form of flowers, fish etc. These items were then placed on the "butsudan" (family shrine found in the house) for the dead person. Kashigata were also used in the making of wagashi (nama-gashi or freshly made cake and hi-gashi or dried confectionery) for tea ceremonies."

Clam Chestnut, $55 via VintageFromJapan on Etsy

Chrysanthemum Kiku Flower, $55 via VintageFromJapan on Etsy

Square, $45 via VintageFromJapan on Etsy

Pine Tree, $55 via VintageFromJapan on Etsy

Lotus Leaf, $55 via VintageFronJapan on Etsy

- Cathleen