2013 Holiday Show Schedule

I've been busy creating new things and am excited to be showing them at my upcoming holiday shows.  Here's my schedule - hope to see you there!

(click on show for more infomation)

NOVEMBER, 2013

11th Annual LCC Holiday Gift Fest & Craft Show
Friday, Nov. 8th (3pm - 8pm)

Saturday, Nov. 9th (9am - 2pm)

Linworth United Methodist Church

7070 Bent Tree Bblvd.

Columbus, OH 43235

Columbus Holiday Craftacular
Sunday, Nov. 17th (11am - 5pm)

Schiller Park Recreation Center

1069 Jaeger Street

Columbus, OH 43206

DECEMBER, 2013

31st Annual Hilliard Holly Fest

Saturday, December 7th (9am - 4pm)

Hilliard Davidson High School

5100 Davidson Rd.

Hilliard, OH 43026

Upcoming Shows - new art

I'm getting ready for two upcoming shows and have come up with some new designs for my fused glass art, finding some fun items along the way.

I found this frame not too long ago and immediately knew that I had to make a vintage-looking cameo for it.


Next, I found some vintage sewing patterns at a local thrift store and came up with these designs. I'm really having fun with these, researching retro fashion clothes and turning them into fused glass art.


This little guy was inspired by my niece's love of unicorns. So cute!

And lastly, some fun lollipop necklaces. These are glass lampwork beads that I made. I've been dabbling in lampworking for a little bit now. Its fun and a change of pace from the fusing.

The two shows I'll be in are Craftin' Outlaws Spring Fling and Eco-Chic Craftacular. Click on the links for more info on these shows.

Watch me Grow

Thought I would blog today about something other than my art. My preschool! This is my third year teaching in the 2-yr. old room and coming up with ideas for decorating the room is always fun to do. We always measure our kids at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year and this is how I came up with my idea. I envisioned green "stems" that were yardsticks for each child, and then having the kids make something to put on the stem for the different seasons. We always start out with simple crafts for the kids at the beginning of the year. This is a huge adjustment for them being away from their parents and half the battle at the beginning of the year is getting them comfortable in our room and with us.    

I went ahead and made the yardstick "stems" ahead of time for when we were ready to integrate crafts into our schedule.

When we finally got the kids into a semi-normal routine, we had craft time and gave each child a paper plate and paint brush. We let them paint the entire plate yellow and when they were done, they put a big brown circle in the middle to represent a sunflower. The craft went over really well. We had a couple kids who didn't want to stop painting, so we gave them extra paper plates to paint for their masterpieces!

After the kids left, I went to work putting the sunflowers on the wall and incorporated a fence and added clouds that said "Watch Me Grow". I think they turned out adorable and was so excited when the kids got to see what became of their sunflowers.

This also tied into the other side of our wall, which has a huge tree that we use for explaining the seasons. So now, our entire wall is a beautiful mural! So colorful and inviting for the kids to see every day.

Now here's my plan. We are going to take the kids pictures and cut their faces out in a circle to put in the middle of the sunflower. In October/November, we'll take the sunflower paper plates down and put up indian corn that the kids will make (with bubble wrap!) and put pumpkins (also a craft) along the fence. For the winter, I am still thinking of ideas, but for now, I am envisioning somehow making pine trees out of the stems. We can put "snow" on them and the fence when it gets really cold and actually starts snowing. Come spring, we'll have the kids make beautiful spring flowers and maybe have their picture on them again. At the end of the year, their "stem" will go into their journals (with their measurements) and their pictures. The parents can see how much they've grown since the beginning of school to the end of the school year. That's my favorite part working in the 2-yr. old room. The transformation from the beginning of the year (lots of crying, separation anxiety) to the end of the year (happy, confident, knowledgeable- they learn so much!!!) children. Its incredibly amazing to see. And what makes it all worth it, as we start this new year with some sad faces, is watching our now 3-yr. olds passing our room to go into the 3's room, while waving to us with happy faces and stopping to give us hugs. Priceless.

Mad Men

Spring is here and I finally jumped on the Mad Men bandwagon! Let me just say..... it's great and I'm hooked. My husband started watching it on Netflix a couple months ago and I started following it around season 2. I then started from the beginning on Season 1 and finished through Season 4 in a matter of a couple weeks. It was a big deal for the season premiere last week because the show had been on a year-and-a-half hiatus. It was a great time to watch all the episodes right before the beginning of season 5. In a nutshell, the show is set in 1960s New York, and follows the lives of the competitive men and women of the Madison Avenue advertising agency, Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce. Haven't seen it? You should. Its really an exceptional glimpse into the decade of the 60s, with awesome fashion style and spot on references to events that happened in that era. The sometimes brazen aspects of the show actually make the the story lines more awesome and very entertaining. Oh, and Don Draper is certainly easy on the eyes - am I right, ladies? The men on the show all dress neatly and stylishly, drink cocktails liberally and smoke cigarettes constantly as they try harder and harder to become more successful and outdo each other. The women's fashion is unbelievable and in an era where women were expected to "know their place", you can't help but feel empowered by some of the women who stand up for themselves and what they believe in in a male-dominating workplace and in their homes (i.e., Peggy, Joan). And Betty, such a hot mess, yet you still gotta love her. Yeah, its good!

Well, my hubby's birthday is coming up and I decided to make a framed fused glass piece that is the picture in the opening credits of a businessman (assumingly Don Draper), who appears as a black-and-white silhouette sitting on a sofa overlooking New York skyscrapers. I have never made him a fused glass piece before, so I'm excited to give this to him. I think it will look awesome in his office.

My Favorite Time of the Year

Yep, Halloween's a' comin'! I couldn't wait until October to post these, so here we go....












You can find most of these items in my etsy shop. Happy Halloween!!!!

Latest....

I received a custom order fused glass guitar from a guy who is in the music industry - very exciting! He's an entertainment agent and has worked with some big names - Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Randy Travis, Kansas, Rascal Flats, to name a few. He was looking for a red, white and blue guitar and I came up with this for him. My guitars are one of my favorite things to make. Everything is glass, including the strings and I love coming up with new designs.



Next, a coffee tile for a good friend of mind, Jamie, from Glasstastic Treasures. She does lampwork beads, among other things, and I'm always ogling over her things and have quite a collection going of her beads. We did a trade - I made her a coffee tile for her kitchen, and she came up with a couple BEAUTIFUL lampwork pendants for me. Here is one of them:



And finally, some fun, summer pendants:

Being Green

Well, I skipped April on blogging - let's move right along to May! The 3rd Annual Eco-Chic Craftacular put on by Etsy Team Columbus is just around the corner. This is my 2nd year doing this show and I canNOT wait! The shows goal is to have vendors challenge themselves to bring a more “green” concept to some of their wares. Of course I recycle almost all of my glass that I use. I have a HUGE bin of bits & pieces of broken glass from my bigger projects that I incorporate into lots of my jewelry and other art pieces. This year, I decided to take it one step further and create something totally different that will go along with the "green" theme. I LOVE Starbucks - who doesn't? All those pretty gift cards seem like such a waste to throw away. I started saving them last year thinking I would make something with them, but not sure what. I had quite a collection - not just Starbucks, but stores, restaurants, etc. as well. About a month ago, I came up with the idea to make them into key chains. I was toying around with different ideas on how to cut them into shapes, when duh, it was right there in front of me. The ring saw I use to cut my glass surely would cut through hard plastic, right? Yep - it did, and I have been obsessed with making these ever since. Now I have a local Starbucks saving me customer's used gift cards they don't want and I have parents, friends & family jumping on board and saving me gift cards as well. I honestly need to start getting my fused glass creations ready for the show, but I can't seem to put these key chains down. They are so fun to make and just when I think I've seen the cutest gift card, someone hands me another one that tops it. Some of the shapes I've come up with are hearts, dogs, squirrels, hedgehogs, bunnies, dinosaurs, birds, whales, turtles, butterflies.... I started making these a couple weeks ago and already have 50+ made for the show (and TONS of gift cards still to use!).


So, they're super cute and you want one, right? I'll have them at the Craftacular show - here's the deets:

Saturday May 14th 10am - 6pm
Sunday May 15th 12pm - 5pm
Whetstone Recreation Center
3923 N High St
Columbus, OH 43214
http://www.columbuscraftacular.com/

Latest

So much going on..... so little time to blog. Clearly blogging has not been my forte lately, so here is what I have been working on over the last couple of months. Enjoy!

Fused Glass Circle Tile


Pretty Poppies


Bird in a Cage


Tile Art


Dandelion Dish


Custom Order


Colorful Dish


Wedding Couple


And just in time for St. Paddy's Day:

Lucky Leprechaun Pendant

Parting is such sweet sorrow....

Down in my wee little studio, I've been keeping this gingerbread house that I made out of a box when my son was just 1-1/2 yrs. old (he's 8 now). I was really into photographing his every move and pretty much made props all the time and posed the poor child in more ways than you can imagine. I've parted with most of the props but could not come to get rid of this one. It took so long glueing every piece of hard candy on it (yes, its real candy), painting all the icing using puffy paints (I swear I probably went through a dozen bottles), and even making little gingerbread men to go along with the house. I was looking at it stored way back in the closet and saw how the candy was getting a bit gross. Apparently having hard candy stored for over six years in a closet where the room gets hot from time to time in the summer months, takes a toll on the candy. In fact, there are now drippings on the carpet from where the hard candy must have started to melt. Good times.

So, I decided it was time. I brought it upstairs to await its destruction. I got busy doing something else and turned around to see my other baby making a new home for herself! Sorry Stella - trash day is in a few days - have fun with it while you can.



Oh, and by-the-way, here is MY baby at 1-1/2 yrs. old:

Custom Guitar

I've been busy this holiday season with shows, crafts, parties, etc. I wanted to take a moment to share a custom fused glass guitar that I made. Here is the original guitar and below is the reproduction in fused glass. The strings are glass as well. Its been a while since I've made a guitar and I really love the way this one turned out!