You don’t see many wooden vases, for the fairly obvious reason that they’re not waterproof plus the rot. Wood is about the worst material you could possibly make a vase from.

Not so this one though, it’s wood cleverly wrapped around a ceramic pot. It’s only about five inches tall but it’s quite cute, although being wood there are obvious signs of wear with the odd chip, scrape, scratch and loss of varnish.

Not only is it made from wood, but someone carefully laminated different coloured wood together before machining it into a barrel shape formed to hold the pot inside.

Although the work to construct this is admirable the end result doesn’t really justify the effort. At the end of the day it’s just some rather odd looking lumps of wood glued around a pot. It looks more like a high school child’s project than something you’d be willing to pay good money for.

Bull fighting at the best of times isn’t one of my favourite sports although it’s still performed in Spain to this day. Adorning this this square bottle vase with leather depicting a bull fighting scene doesn’t do much to please me either.

Now call me squeamish as I sit here writing wearing my (leather) shoes and (leather) belt, but somehow having a dead cows skin wrapped around a vase which I’m then going to put on display doesn’t appeal in the slightest.

Most people eat meat, even those who don’t generally wear animal products on their feet, but surely making it into a vase is just going a step too far?

Mind you regardless the lack of taste you have to admire the workmanship that’s gone into creating this. The leather is worked as well as on the best bound books with the picture standing in sharp relief. The bull and matador are well executed with the other three sides covered in floral decorations and yes, even the base of the bottle is leather.

There’s a heck of a lot of skill gone into creating this vase, it’s just a shame the result is revolting.

I suppose it was inevitable that I’d stumble across this little chunk of hideousness. Having already got a Teddy Bear Vase in blue I should have realised that someone somewhere out there would have one in pink.

It’s so obvious, everything for babies are either blue for boys, pink for girls, or yellow because we don’t know what sex the baby will be when it’s born. Now I know the old pink/blue thing is a bit sexist, but don’t blame me, I didn’t make these vases, I just found them.

You’ll be pleased to know that this pink version is just as cheap, tacky and plastic as the blue one. If you’ve got a girl and a boy (and they don’t mind pink and blue), then these are just the gifts to tweak their interest in gardening.

On the other hand if you couldn’t bear to have them in your house do me a favour… keep a look out and let me know if you ever see a yellow one to complete the set.

You could be excused for thinking this vase is just a little dirty and a good scrub with some hot soapy water would restore it to it’s former glory taking away it’s dull sheen and showing off some bright vibrant colours.

You’d be wrong!

This vase really is as dull as it looks, it’s a decorated with a landscape theme all executed in various shades of brown. Brown trees, brown sky, brown fields, brown hedgerows, just brown.

Quite frankly I think I’d have preferred this vase and found it not quite as ugly if there was no pretense of a country scene and it was just a light brown vase with a dark brown top and bottom. At least then it would just be a vase, the horrible colouring on the image has definitely earned this a place in the ugly corner.

This vase is a great shape and weight, it fits the curve of my hand perfectly and is just begging to be dashed to the ground and broken into smithereens. Either that or maybe bowled to someone wielding a baseball bat who could shatter it with one well aimed strike.

Of course I wouldn’t dream of smashing an attractive vase, not matter how much it was begging to be hurled, but this just doesn’t fit the bill. It’s got a rippled sides from the potters wheel which strikes me as pure laziness, it must just be too much hard work to produce a smooth finish.

The flower decorating the side is reminiscent of a butterfly at the base and suns in place of the buds. Also I’ve never seen a flower that the main stem split into three with a flower at the top of each, normally each flower would sit atop it’s own stem rising from the base of the plant.

This one is just too tempting to keep…. has anyone out there got a baseball bat I could borrow?

I just adore trophy shaped vases for no other reason that it’s so easy to write about them for Ugly Vase. I mean be serious, why does a vase need handles in the first place? If it was large enough to hold several gallons of water then I could understand handles might be useful due to the weight, but this vase stands barely four inches tall and to give it handles is just too pretentious.

Almost without exception a vase with handles is just the beginning though, something must click in the designers mind that once a vase has handles the rest of the decoration can be way over the top too and this vase is no exception. A creamy grey base coat, a foul maroon for the bottom and how about a gold trim for the lip? Why not just a touch of gold on the top of the handles? A few swirls in the body and a couple more lumps of clay to embellish the handles didn’t seem a step too far either.

If you ever see a trophy vase from a distance run a mile, I can promise you they’re even worse close up and a guarantee that the maker used every bit of artistic license going to run amok and produce a monstrosity.

I almost like this little oddity, it’s a great shape, perfect for showing a bunch of flowers splayed out so that the blooms are held in an arch rather than all bunched up with most of the flowers hidden behind the bunch…. at least it would be until you realise that this vase is only about four inches tall and you’d be pushed to get a couple of buds in it let alone a proper bouquet.

The decoration isn’t much to write home about either, a fairly unassuming base colour that isn’t the least bit off putting is then ruined with a splattering of brown dots which quite frankly look like the side of my car after driving through muddy puddles down a country lane. The rather odd looking blue fern like leaf that’s adorns the vase is upside down and doesn’t do a lot to enhance the look either as that again is splattered with brown dots.

The kindest thing you can say about this vase is it would have been ok if it was larger and if the artist had known when to stop. The base coat was perfect, the leaf decoration was I could live with, but the poo coloured dots are just a step too far.

This vase just shouts “German” at me, I might be wrong but everything about it is germanic in appearance from the robustly rotund body to the chimney neck and the solid straight-edged lip.

Of course none of that makes it attractive, in fact the German’s are pretty famous for some of the worst vase design out there with Scheurich and Fat Lava pretty much guaranteeing them the dodgiest vase reputation in the world.

Making this one worse is that it’s a sizeable chunk of clay standing about 18 inches tall, not something you could hide away in the corner of the room. This is a vase that shouts to be looked at and with it’s gouged leaf design and regimented rows of square indents looking at it is pretty much the last thing you’ll want to do.

Just for the sake of completeness this is marked on the base with 1508/35 and is rumoured to be Knogden… so if anyone offers you a vase with that shape number you’ll know to politely turn them down and not bother asking for pictures.

I’ve seen one of these vases before (well actually I own one), but I wasn’t expecting to stumble across a second one.

Why anyone took the effort to glaze vases on the inside rather than the outside I don’t know. I mean it must be a night mare to make sure none of the glaze drips onto the surface while you’re swirling it around and then firing the vase.

Still I guess we should be grateful that even though it’s gross, at least it’s functional…. well semi-functional - standing at just about four inches high it’s not really tall enough to put flowers in.

When I wrote about the blue inside out vase I suggested would be just as good if it was simply a dull brown glaze as no one’s going to see it anyway. I should have kept my proverbial mouth shut, this one IS a dull brown glaze that no one’s going to see anyway!

You just know this vase was made for ridicule, I mean even the most tolerant person couldn’t find something complimentary to say about it and I can’t think who might want to put it on display or in pride of place in their front room.

Bottle vases are such a waste of space in the first place, they can’t hold any flowers worth speaking about, which lets face it is the whole point of a vase, and in general they’re not attractive either.

This one is no different, plain brown doesn’t even make an attempt at some class. I honestly don’t know who would want this vase or what could persuade them it had the faintest iota of attractiveness. Some colour might help at least give it a semblance of interest. The shape could be more suitable, tall and thin is the ideal recipe for easy to knock over spilling the flowers and water over your coffee table.

The one and only hope for this vase is that someone, somewhere has a very thin tall window that they need some decoration for, and that brown is their favourite colour!