Green, Broke & Living in Kits: Weird Collectibles

Everyone needs to collect something, right? Our friend Brian collects microbrewery glasses (though his wife thinks it constitutes a mental disorder), and I collect copper jelly moulds (a habit which my boyfriend politely calls "a little strange").

Allyson bought this for me - thank you so much!

I don't really know how it started - I think it was the ugly rental kitchen that inspired me, with its brushed copper-esque drawer pulls and accidentally painted-on brass light fixture support. I like the warm colour of copper, and thought that maybe I could play it up rather than just trying to ignore it.

Apparently seafood mousses were quite popular once-upon-a-time.

As we're all aware, I'm on a pretty limited budget (and that's not out of discipline but necessity - I am utterly, utterly broke!), so finding something to decorate with had to satisfy the following requirements: cheap, easily accessible and rental-suite friendly.

Enter the copper-toned gelatin moulds. Tacky, kitsch and slightly criminal (crime: producing revolting gelatin-based salads like this or this or this - great website, by the way. Credit to Steph for finding this side-splitting little gem! I'll bet you would lose weight with these recipes!), I am very happy to hang these offending implements high, away from the reach of those who might consider whipping up such a meal (like this one, arguably the worst of the lot! Vegetarian runner up: this piece of work).

Imagine the nightmarish culinary disasters these guys helped produce!

I think I was originally inspired by the wall of jelly moulds at ReBar in Victoria (it's even pictured in my ReBar cookbook - looks like they've since moved them from the entrance to the rafters); the copper and silver-coloured moulds really stood out against the chartreuse green walls. And I have fond memories of Grandma and Grandpa's kitchen that has those big copper / bronzed serving platters and a little gas lamp in the same tone.

From my ReBar cookbook pages, in green and white only. The front entrance.

My mission is to collect enough moulds to completely cover my tiny apartment-sized kitchen's walls. The rules are simple: the moulds have to be inexpensive, copper-toned and second-hand. It's kind of a nice thing to have an on-going project that doesn't require daily care (like a garden does), and I'm hoping that if people want to buy me a tangible gift for Christmas (though I'd be very happy with an intangible one - see my blog post on "Christmas Gifts that Really Matter"!), this will provide an interesting option!

So if you enjoy reading my blog, and you have a wonderful copper jelly mould you'd like to send my way, please post a comment! Otherwise, I hope you enjoy starting a collection of something yourself - please post collection suggestions below that are green, inexpensive and bizarre!