When people visit a museum, its gift shop is usually the last thing they see. During the holidays, however, museum stores should be your first destination for gift ideas. These very special stores reflect the collections of their parent institutions, and they carry a wide range of items — regional publications, landmark photos, works by local artists, tasteful toys, and elegant accessories — that are sure to inspire, surprise, and delight everyone on your list. Here are some of our favorites.
Heading along Ohio’s Interstates and limited access highways, we sometimes forget there are amazing attractions at some of the exits.
Just off US Route 23 is Wyandot Popcorn Museum, located in downtown Marion. Famous for collecting and restoring the world’s largest collection of popcorn antiques and peanut roasters, the collection will fascinate anyone interested in antiques, collectables, and wonderful memories of another time. Two examples are more than 100 years old.
Smiles and giggles are everywhere as each child follows his or her butterfly. The adults stand ready with their cameras and their own smiles.
Every year, The Butterfly Migration Celebration is held at the The Children’s Garden in Lima. It’s the biggest project Allen County Master Gardeners puts together.
Master Gardeners are dedicated to promoting and teaching environmentally sound research-based gardening practices. This is done through many different projects held throughout the year.
According to an old Pima Indian legend, a flock of very ordinary gray birds became concerned about how unattractive they looked. They began bathing in a sparkling blue mountain lake every morning hoping to make themselves more beautiful. After bathing in the lake for four days, their feathers fell off, and all that remained was gray skin that was even uglier than their plain-looking gray feathers. On the fifth day the feathers grew back in, but this time they were the brilliant blue color of the mountain lake.
While Holmes County historians have ascertained that the hamlet of Charm began in the 1840s when a blacksmith shop opened along an old Indian trail near Doughty Creek, no one knows for sure how Charm got its unusual name. Other businesses gradually joined the blacksmith shop, and by the 1860s, a community had evolved that locals called Stevenson, apparently because Stephen Yoder and his son farmed the land there. When Stevenson’s citizens applied for a post office in the 1880s, the postal department asked them to choose an official name. They picked Charm. Why?
You only have one chance to make a good first impression. That old saying is true for you and for your home too. All too often, however, homeowners dwell on how a house looks and feels on the inside and neglect the outside. A new granite countertop may add sparkle to your kitchen, but maintaining your home’s exterior appearance — or curb appeal — also is important to your enjoyment of the place where you spend most of your time and have invested much of your money.
Expect plenty of fringe — a popular decoration of the day — when Ohio Village jumps ahead in time about 30 years.
On May 28, when Ohio Village opens for its 2016 summer season during the Memorial Day weekend, the re-created 19th-century rural Ohio community in Columbus will fast-forward in time from the 1860s and the Civil War to the 1890s.
Windows do more than bring light into your home. They provide views of your neighborhood, connect the indoors with the outdoors, accent your home’s architecture, and contribute immeasurably to its curb appeal.
“Windows matter,” says Brett Boyum, vice president of marketing for Marvin Windows and Doors. “They’re a large and important part of the overall statement that a house makes.”
Intending to follow in his pharmacist father’s professional footsteps, Jack Nicklaus enrolled in the Ohio State University’s pre-pharmacy program, but he never finished his undergraduate degree. After twice winning the U.S. Amateur during his college days, Nicklaus left Ohio State in 1961 and turned professional in order to support his young family. Nicklaus promptly usurped golf’s reigning king, Arnold Palmer, the following spring in the U.S. Open, and the rest, as they say, is history — for sports and his “almost” alma mater.
