July Beauties and Babies

Trying to capture the natural beauty of various florals around our property with a version of  blown and sculpted glass.

This July was very full of family, flowers, and furry kittens. I'm sharing some of those pictures with you this month. Even though we are constantly working on new projects in the Studio, sometimes it's nice to take time to smell the flowers and enjoy a simple life now and then.  

Sculpted Rosebuds

A sampling of our wildlife sold in Yellowstone Park Stores

     We enjoyed the birth of our sixth grandchild and 2nd granddaughter at the beginning of the month.

Our brand new granddaughter born in July. 💖💖

The Kittens I talked about last month have kept us on our toes. So silly, naughty and cute, all wrapped up in little balls of fur. 

Our rescued kittens

The following pictures are my once-a-year share of  the flowers around our property, plus our garden and chickens. We like to quote Bilbo Baggins from the Hobbit...."It is not such a bad thing to enjoy a simple life". This month of July we are doing just that, by enjoying family reunions, babies, kittens, working on our yard and gardening. We hope you can take the time to slow down and enjoy the simple things too this summer. 

One of many flowers in the yard.

Many blooms going on in July

Our glass flowers try to blend in with the lilies.

Beautiful colors!

More pops of color

Pink Daisy

Pretty purples

Our garden sign highlighted with fused glass pieces.

More Daisies

Sunflowers are one of my favorite!

Some of our chickens

Hollyhocks galore!

Until next time, take the time to enjoy a tall cold beverage in the hot summer sun.  

Dog Days of Summer

I took a picture of Russ taking a picture of a beautiful Idaho sunset. 😊

Family reunions filled up a lot of weekends this month, and already August is coming to an end. Nice thing about that, is no more air conditioning should be needed. One thing you can count on in Idaho, is our short summers. We can't complain though, while much of the country swelters in the summer sun, we rarely see the 100 degree mark. However, this August saw plenty of smoke from fires near and wide. That made it hard to breathe, but also made for some spectacular sunsets. And it did get hot enough a few days, to refer to the term "Dog Days of Summer". Makes it hard to work in the Studio at those temps., but we did manage to work on a few projects this month. One of them had to do with the passing of a friend's beloved pet. We also enjoyed spending time with some of our grand kids, romping around in our backyard playground.

Russ playing with our grand daughter in our backyard.

One of our friends lost her beloved furry companion Newton, this past month. She requested a memorial be made with his ashes. Russ came up with a slumped and fused design that incorporated the dog's ashes with the paw print. I created some flowers that also had the ashes incorporated in the middle and added it to complete the memorial gift, shown below. We would like to offer different versions of this idea to customers who would like to remember their pets in this way. We were thinking a framed piece that could hang on a wall would work well also.

Fused Glass Paw Print with a pet's ashes incorporated.

The finished Pet's Memorial.

In the picture below, Russ created a panel of trees based on the four seasons. We just need to attach it to a steel frame and it will be ready to hang.

Fused and screen printed glass - 4 Season Tree Panels

And there's always room in the kiln for a few new slumped and fused pieces, pictured below.

Striped Slumped and Fused Platter

Slumped and Fused Abstract Bowl

Once in a while, Russ gets inspired to create something for our living space. This month he wanted to recreate a slumped and fused piece inspired by our time spent in the mountains. Many hours were spent sawing, shaping with kaowool in the kiln, and sandblasting the float glass to create the scene of the Tetons. It was also tricky attaching it to the pine wood base and installing in our living room. But now that it's up on the wall, we can enjoy this very large piece of glass art work for years to come. 

We've already had requests to re-create something like this piece, so back to work we go. We'll miss the care-free days of summer, but at least the coming cooler temps will make it easier to work in the Studio. Well, that about wraps it up for the summer, enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

Wall Art - Slumped and Fused Float Glass- The Grand Tetons

So Busy It's Scary

Whooooo's ready for Halloween?

You want to know what's scary this month? Besides the local hauntings, little goblins, and creepy crawlies....blinking an eye and realizing it's already over! It seems like a blur, so much done in the Studio, yet so far to go. 

We started out October like we ended September, blowing and sandblasting hundreds of dove ornaments for a non-profit organization that found us on Etsy. Wouldn't seem like a daunting task, except there's just the two of us, with a short time frame to get the work done. That counts for many, many hours of labor, and boy were we happy to ship them out the door this week. I think if there had been one more day of that noisy compressor blasting away, our dogs would've committed some kind of murder upon us for hurting their ears.

A small portion of a very large ornament order

We did manage to get away once in a while, and happened to come upon a scary looking forest one weekend, while looking for firewood. Scary as it looked, it felt really good to breathe in the forest and Autumn air, instead of dealing with the dust that accompanies our sandblast activities in the Studio.

Spooky forest

Also, everything was put to an abrupt halt earlier this month, when we were notified our 3rd grandchild was on his way.  What a beautiful reprieve from the tedious goings-on in the Studio, as I realized grandson #3 would come into the world on what was my very own day of birth, many years ago. He was welcomed into the world with lots of love, a perfect baby boy, and I couldn't believe we were both to share a special bond with this day. What a grand thing for this grandparent. I was gifted the ultimate present on my birthday. A precious day to be treasured for the rest of my years of life.

Our 3rd grandson is having sweet dreams

Once the happiness of welcoming our grandchild into the world had subsided, we headed back down the road home, and right into the Studio to complete lots of unfinished projects. The pieces below were created this month, along with the large order of doves.

Shark, Stingray, Starfish and Coral Scene

The War Cry

Mama Bear and her cubs

And now that Halloween is just about here, I think we'll take the time to spend with family members, and do some fun spooky hauntings before the next holiday orders come rushing at us full speed ahead. So busy it's scary!

Our carved pumpkins