September Harvest

Another batch of wildlife headed to Yellowstone

Lately, it seems the months are blurring into each other. I can't believe we are already looking  into the month of October in a few days. Time sure has a way of getting away from us. I'll take the time to write a quick blog post today, then head back into the Studio for more projects. (We never seem to run out of them these days.) Pictured above is part of the latest blown glass wildlife order from the Yellowstone stores. 

A hand engraved slumped wine bottle created for a customer in Iowa.

The flattened (slumped) bottle and logo above were made for a winery in Iowa. We enjoy creating Business' logos with our engraver. It's a hand engraver, so I take my time with these kind of projects to get it just right. No such luxury of  a laser engraver yet, maybe in the future. 

Orders are already piling up for the coming Holidays.

Pictured above is part of an order we created for an Art Gallery that's located across the country. I have lots of finish work to do, like tying cords onto each individual ornament, and adding tags of course. I take extra time carefully wrapping each one with tissue paper and bubble wrap, to make sure it arrives safely to it's destination. (You wouldn't believe how much of that product we go through every month.) The Devil is in the details.

Meanwhile, our garden harvest is full-bore this month of September. We've already harvested beans, peas, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, peppers, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes, herbs, and zucchini. Pictured below are the latest vegetables to be picked. We had no choice, as the garden got hit by frost last week. Looks like I have plenty of winter squash to store this year, along with a good variety of pumpkins. 

So, multi-tasking is a must in the month of September, with the business and home and garden duties. It's a way of life we have grown accustomed to. And you know how the saying goes, "You reap what you sow". Until next time, enjoy the Harvest. 

September is a month filled with canning garden goodies.

So Long, Farewell, Goodbye 2016

Well, the end is near folks! To 2016 that is. 😏 What a year! We've had as many highs as we've had lows. I guess that is what you call a full life. We were tested to our limits in so many ways, but we're still here standing on two feet, so that is what I like to focus on. The end of the year is a time for us to reflect back and also look forward. Things happened this year that we could and couldn't control. No matter how hard we tried, some things just weren't meant to be, or we couldn't quite get right. As is said, "That's the way the cookie crumbles", "the ball bounces", "the way the wind blows," etc. We got through a lot of tough issues and experiences, but have much to be happy about too, as this was the busiest and most productive year to date in our Studio.

Merry Christmas Ornament

December was a busy month right up until the end. Filling orders, packaging them securely, and shipping them out in all types of weather, including intense snowstorms, were a priority. Tree ornaments were in highest demand. We used enamel decals on a variety of glass ornaments this year. We tried to have a wide selection of blown ball ornaments ready to go for this festive season.

A variety of commissioned glass fly ties

Specialty gifts were commissioned as well, like the glass fly ties on Manzanita wood pictured above, and blown ball ornaments with a sports theme, pictured below.

Commissioned Oregon Duck themed blown glass ornaments

Our enamel decals also added a festive look to our slumped bottles and fused kiln ornaments.

Slumped bottles for Holiday trivets, and Fused Santa Ornaments

Russ went above and beyond this month, behind the torches. We went through many tanks of oxygen and propane as we both did our part and worked to fill order after order. We actually had to shut down the business for a bit to enjoy the birth of our 4th grandchild and first granddaughter mid December.

Our tireless Master Blaster, blowing glass until just about the last minute of the year

 One of the last orders to go out the door before we shut down for the year was the commissioned piece below, "Rabbits in the Garden".

Bunnies in the garden

 We were more than relieved when we could shut everything down in the Studio and just sit back and enjoy our kids and grand kids for the rest of the holiday season.

We were lucky to have everyone home for Christmas this year and enjoyed the company of our grown kids and grand kids. We don't take these precious moments for granted. Time spent with family is a gift in itself.

Our family continues to grow

 Russ and I have also grown to appreciate all that is offered to us from Nature's bounty, at our place of residence. The highlight of Christmas day was witnessing the mighty Buck pictured below, standing majestically on the front part of our property. It was as if he was giving us a simple but noble gift of his majesty. Simple gifts seem to be the most symbolic, like the gift of the little child wrapped in swaddling clothes thousands of years ago. Simplistic beauty is holy in many forms. For me, this gift from Nature was the height of the Christmas season this year. 

A majestic Buck on our property, Christmas Day

I hope that in the new year we can continue to strive for that kind of peace of mind and tranquility as we face new challenges in the coming year, both in our personal and professional lives. It is easy to lose sight of what matters, in this often turbulent world we live in. The new year always brings a fresh perspective, and we are hopeful we can continue to create new artistic beauty through new glass pieces and commissions. We want to wish our loyal customers the very best in the new year, and hope to welcome many new clients as well.  We are beyond thankful for all of you who continue to show us your support and business, throughout our many years of working with this wonderful medium of glass art. 

Gone to the Fishing Hole

One of our Custom Blown and Sculpted Glass Trout Scenes

 What better time to get away to the local fishing hole than the month of the Summer Solstice? While the month of June was filled with honoring Dads on Father's Day, celebrating our anniversary, and spending time with our kids and one of our grandsons, there was lots of hard work in the Studio, projects in the yard, and keeping up with the gardening. So the last weekend in June we decided to stop working long enough to have a relaxing and fun "gone fishing" weekend too. We were able to make a trip up into the mountains nearby, in our new camper for the first time. We have been tent camping all our adult lives until this year, and I have to say, someone should have knocked some sense into us a long time ago. The camper allowed us to enjoy the great outdoors like it was meant to be enjoyed. I guess we aren't into the "inconvenience" that comes with tent camping anymore. It comes when you reach a certain age of sensibility, I suppose. We were much more comfortable and relaxed this time around, and look forward to many more weekends of convenient camping.

Enjoying our new camping experience.

 The past weekend was spent with our oldest son, his wife, and all our dogs. It was a beautiful couple of days with perfect temperatures, and the fish were biting consistently. It has been a long time since we could just relax and enjoy Nature's beauty. All the dogs were in heaven too, as they splashed in the water and chased sticks and birds.

A beautiful day at Palisades

The stringer was full of trout

 Well, the fun had to end. Now it's back to the grind for a while. I'm waiting in anticipation for the next getaway. It does a body good, to forget the worries of the day and just fish. Retirement is less than 10 years away and I have a feeling it will become the norm, to head into the hills at that time. Until then, we need to make a living. So off to complete more orders like the one below. Of course, when you love what you do for a living, it really doesn't seem too much like work. I hope you can find the time to balance work and play in your lives too.

A custom order for a client

New Spring Colors and Projects

Colorful glass eggs accent a real bird's nest we found in our yard.

Bird's nest completes our birdhouse outside

Time for us to check in again with our monthly blog. I'll keep it short and sweet this month. We are both ready for Spring color, and ready for March to be over. The winds are howling outside right now and it can grate on one's nerves after days on end of the same windy weather patterns. Just like the predictable winds, March was no exception to our pattern of staying busy in the Studio. 

While we had plenty of orders to take care of, I had been wanting to do something with this bird's nest I found in our yard. It had fallen from one of our trees. Russ created some colorful eggs, and I spruced up one of our bird houses outside with the recycled bird's nest. A fun project to create on the side.

Below are projects completed in the Studio while the March winds were whipping. The glass is hand sculpted in our lamp work flame. Some of the glass, like the crosses, are made using slumping and fusing techniques. There tends to be a wider variety of color when working with soft glass, as compared to the hard blown glass.

We've added a customized label to some of our ornaments this year.

Colorful balls remind us of an Easter basket full of colorful Spring eggs.

Glass crosses and a variety of other ornaments created for a customer.

Flowers were still in demand this month, and we had a variety of special orders to finish, like the anemones and tulips pictured below.

Our first try at a new flower

A pretty bouquet of Anemones

Glass Tulips are a perfect gift this time of year.

A completed glass tulip arrangement

One of our new baby chicks tip-toeing through the tulips

 Now that March is coming to a close, we are pondering which project to complete next. Hmmm, April showers bring May flowers. Maybe it's time to start thinking about doing some wedding bouquets.

Have a Heart

Lustered Rose bouquet

Another small bouquet with purple highlights

Valentines Month is also "Healthy Heart" month. From some personal experience, I can say I understand the importance of this focus. Normally February is a very busy time for us, teaching lessons for "Hot Date Night" and shipping out rose bouquets, both of which were accomplished. But this year I'd be lying if I said everything was smooth sailing for us. Production in the Studio kind of came to a screeching halt as we dealt with major health issues on both sides of our families.

If anything has been learned, we can say we have a fresh perspective on just how precious our health and hearts can be. Family is what captures our hearts the most, and we are thankful for having such strong family ties. Life has it's ups and downs, and in reality it's never the bed of roses we wish it could be. But how we deal with the lows is just as important as how we deal with the highs. Have to remember that one.

Teddy Bears with heart shape balloons are new this year.

As far as Valentine gifts, there was still time to get a little creative with some new blown glass creations like the ones pictured above and below (we're dealing with the personal stuff as best as we can.) Bottom line is when life gets tough, it's important to "have a heart" and give of yourself to those around you that might need the comfort of a helping hand. We're appreciative of the fact that our family is good at rallying when the going gets tough. 

"Heart of the Ocean" Blown glass Valentine gift

We shipped out a number of these bouquets this month

Upcycled bottles pictured with some of our heart pendants

February is coming to a close and the dark clouds of winter are lessening. A little sun is good for our overall outlook, and helps improve the mood. So as we adjust our attitude, we look forward to a little more sunshine and happiness as we welcome Spring next month. Until next time, remember how important it is to "have a heart", literally and figuratively. 

Good Tidings

One of our large blown glass Angels created by our Lamp work torch.

Have you ever had the feeling that external forces are helping you along in life, without being able to pinpoint the exact cause for your good tidings? This sums up our 2015 year in the Studio. Call it a guardian angel or whatever phenomenon you'd like, but we felt like the season was full of exciting and memorable creations, to where it felt like something outside ourselves was sometimes helping us along our paths of creativity.

A blown glass scuba diver ornament

The year is winding down and we are finding ourselves reflecting once again, on so many unique, fun creations of glass, from the beginning in January, right down to the very end of December.  

A unique piece of art features a fused glass trout swimming in a riverbed

Of course, we have had our share of mishaps too, like the trout scene above. Countless hours were spent on the fused piece, only to find out it was damaged during shipping. That's the luck of the draw, when it comes to shipping glass. But we try not to spend too much time and energy focused on the failures, and instead, like to focus on the overall success of the glass art we created in the Studio.

Blown glass treble clef ornament

Many ornaments were shipped out the door the last quarter of the year, from doves to candy canes, to Christmas trees, to musical ornaments. 

Lovely Calla Lily Arrangement

We also had time to create commissioned pieces like the elegant luster pink Calla lilies pictured above. They are nestled in one of our recycled and engraved wine bottles for a unique centerpiece for the home of our customer.

Slumped and fused pieces featured at our Annual Open House this year.

The fused pieces above, and the blown glass elk below were featured in our annual December Open House. We look forward to the community coming to our Studio this time every year to watch us blow glass and browse through our large selection of ornaments and glass art.

Blown Glass Elk were also featured at our annual Open House

We did a commissioned Idaho Falls Temple for one customer that came to our Open House. There are glass pine trees surrounding the building, just like the real time landscaping.

A commissioned blown and sculpted glass Idaho Falls Temple

We had time to make a unique tiki ornament for all of Adele's brothers and sister, to remember the fun we had at her family's reunion. It was held in sunny California earlier this year. The reunion had a tiki theme and we gave these whimsical ornaments to help them reflect back to good times with the family.

Whimsical Glass Tiki Ornaments

We also had time to make new ornaments right up to the last minute. One customer requested the cute penguin ornament below.

Commissioned blown glass penguin ornament

These scalloped float glass trees were a bit of a challenge to make, but the end result was what we were after, with an engraved greeting on the front of the ornaments.

Scalloped and engraved float glass Christmas tree ornaments

Another customer asked to have their pets blown out of glass to mimic the real thing. This was also a challenge to get exactly right, as the colored glass is much harder to work with. We hope the recipient was happy with this piece.

A customer's pets were recreated out of colored glass

Once all the orders were complete and picked up, we got to business preparing for family to come. We still pick out an old fashioned pine tree to decorate, just like the old days, when our kids were younger and we would go into the forest to chop down a tree. We eagerly awaited the arrival of all of our children on Christmas Eve. The little grandchildren were all gifted Christmas pajamas and this Grandpa and Grandma were in heaven surrounded by all our children and their families.

Our old fashioned Christmas tree

The most precious gifts, our grandchildren

Cute ornaments we made just for our grandchildren

We enjoyed some much needed time off from the Studio and played in our back yard's winter wonderland with our oldest grandson. It was quite cold, but still fun to enjoy a very white Christmas this year.

Fun in the snow with our grandson

The slumped and fused snowman candle centerpiece felt appropriate to make this year too, with all the snow that's been falling in our neck of the woods.

Slumped and fused winter snowman scene accented with a candle

Jack Frost is also working his magic lately. Everything is shimmering and bright under a full moon Christmas picture that we took out our front window. We would like to thank each and every customer that has purchased from us and helped us continue to thrive as a small business, and look forward to another new year of great tidings. Season's greetings and a very happy new year from 

A Touch of Glass Studio.

Jack Frost is helping us end the year out right with a beautiful winter scene view out our front yard.