February 27th, 2008 - Testimonials from Happy Bottle Owners

"I LOVE my bottles from Jeannie in a Bottle. I have two distinctively different bottles and I put them on timers; they come on at dusk and shut off at dawn... They illuminate the rooms!" Click here to read more>>>

February 2nd, 2008 ~ Meet Kimberly in person at the Mount Dora Downtown Art Stroll!

The Mount Dora Downtown Art Stroll is designed to encourage residents and visitors to enjoy the historical and cultural heart of the city while supporting one of our most valuable resources � our artist community of Central Florida.

January 01, 2008 ~ Reprint of an article appearing in LAKE magazine, January 2008

These first few lines from a poem written by Steve Carson are attached to every bottle painted by Kimberly Ann Ghia, a Mount Dora artist with a flair for elegant decoration. Kimberly calls her creations Jeannie in a Bottle and promises the following to all who buy them:
Now you can wish for her to send three wishes to you.
One will have your troubles cease the second wish for love, the last brings inner peace.

It is said by magic men
This bottle holds a Jeannie within

These first few lines from a poem written by Steve Carson are attached to every bottle painted by Kimberly Ann Ghia, a Mount Dora artist with a flair for elegant decoration.

Ghia calls her creations Jeannie in a Bottle and promises the following to all who buy them:

Now you can wish for her to send three wishes to you.

One will have your troubles cease the second wish for love, the last brings inner peace.

All of us can hope, says Ghia a glass artist who paints designs on wine, liquor and other fancy bottles, then wires them as lamps. Her patchwork designs give the bottles a stained glass mosaic look, but the glass is neither blown nor fused. It may look like stained glass, but it isn't. Ghia paints her own abstract designs on the bottles, and then applies gold lead paint in thin strips to outline the colors and to give the impression that the different patches of color represent different pieces of glass.

In stained glass objects, thin strips of lead are used to hold the individual panes in ornamental windows. Ghia uses the idea to simulate the technique of leading, but in her bottles there are no individual pieces of glass. Colored stones, some with a semi-precious look, and broken pieces of jewelry are added for accents. She not only mixes colors but textures.

Her plan, she explains, is not to trick the eye, but rather to please it. When used as accent lamps, the bottles are also functional.

Carson, who ran a talent agency for performers in New York for several years, said he saw Ghia's bottles in an antique shop in Mount Dora a few years ago and immediately saw the magic in them. His penned the verse he titled Jeannie in a Bottle and gave it to Ghia to use in promoting her work.

"This started out as a hobby for me. I was intrigued by a bottle a friend in Orlando had made; she had painted a Christmas tree with decorations on the glass. I just expanded the idea and my own designs inspired me to go on."

Ghia's painted bottles caught on. She showed some to restaurant owners in Mount Dora and everyone wanted a personalized version. Now they're all over town. Costs vary from $70 to over $200, depending on the size of the bottle, its colors and customized design.

Several restaurants display them as lamps with their own personalized logos.

You can also find them in the accessories store called Bobbles and Bling in downtown Mount Dora and they're also in England and Germany.

Born in San Diego, Ghia grew up in North Carolina, then moved to Florida when she was 14. She's been painting something or other since childhood and spent 17 years applying permanent makeup to plastic surgery patients.

She moved to Mount Dora four years ago and set up her art studio is in a comfy condo overlooking Lake Dora. She shares the space with two affectionate cats who watch her work hour after hour, often late into the night. All of the cats have been rescued, a fact that Ghia proudly explains to all her visitors. "I think I fall in love with every cat I see," she says.

"When people started taking notice of my bottles, I thought: well, maybe I have something here. I think I inspired myself to go on and create more designs and more elaborate decorations."

She said that working alone in her studio and being her own boss helps her create more work.

While she is completing all the special orders she has received for personalized bottles, Ghia now offers a how-to video explaining the process.

In the meantime she has a website: www.jeanniebykimberly.com. Or you can call her at 352/455-7159 for more information.