Our Year's End

Visiting our family's old cabin in the mountains of Idaho.

Time for the last blog entry of 2017, as we are coming up to the last hours of the year. Always a time for reflection of what was. After all the chaos of the busy season in our Studio, our family ended the year right with a family vacation in and around Yellowstone Park. We enjoyed spending the last week of the year with our 4 sons and their families. During that time, so many memories came flooding back as we rode our snowmobiles past Russ' parent's old cabin nestled up in the mountains. It has long since been sold to someone outside of the family, but the happy times we shared in this magical place years ago, will live on in our hearts and minds forever. Sweet memories of the joy Russ' Mom spread around to each of us when we came to visit. It's been a hard year, having lost the lovely Matriarch of our family this past July. I was reminded of her lovely spirit as we passed by the cabin. I only hope to become half the woman she was, full of humility and unconditional love. We were lucky to include this quick jaunt down Memory Lane during our short vacation.

Meanwhile, during the month of December, we have been lucky to witness our mighty Buck returning from the nearby mountains to our very own Backyard again. He must know he has found safe haven here. Not much gets done when he wonders onto the property, as our eyes are transfixed on this majestic animal.

Our Buck has returned to our neighborhood again this year.

But we managed to redirect our focus to the tasks at hand in the Studio this month, and some of the results are pictured below. I hand engraved some slumped bottles, along with firing some decals on them with festive holiday designs and sayings. They were on display during our annual Open House the first part of December.

Up-cycled bottles display festive holiday themes.

Russ created some new wall art shown below, using a combination of float and soft glass. The moon and grass reeds were cut out of float glass, then slumped in the kiln. The frog and dragonflies were cut and pieced together, along with some glass saw work, then slumped and fused in multiple kiln firings. 

Slumped and fused Pondscape

Customers that came to our Open House requested new projects,  many of them shown below. We really enjoy new challenges poised to us by customers, they keep the creative juices flowing.

Marvin the Martian was made out of soft COE 90 glass, with enamel paint accents.

Soft and hard glass were combined for these names.

Cinderella's glass slipper ornament

A special request was made for this Lilac-Breasted Roller

Another customer requested one of these popular fused scenes on Birch wood.

We make a new glass ornament for our grand kids every year.

Float glass was cut and slumped into a fun snowman mold, then I applied enamel paint and baked them on in the kiln for the cookie tray pictured below. 

Snowman-themed cookie tray

And during our Open House earlier this month Jack Frost was on full display all throughout our neighborhood. We couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of  the stunning results of Nature's works. 

Jack Frost worked his magic in our yard, earlier in December.

And so ends another year of our own productive works. As one year closes and another is just about to begin, we hope you will stay tuned for the latest in our ever-evolving world of glass: Handcrafted and blown in our Idaho Studio. We want to thank all our customers once again, for your support. Many of you are responsible for us achieving another banner year of sales and success. Wishing you and yours all the best for 2018.