Little Dragon and Snowflake Fundraising

This little Dragon, intaglio engraved paperweight and this snowflake decoration will be in a gift basket that you can win at the wednesday markets at Wharf Park in Naramata on Wednesdays from 3:30 - 6:30. You will find Craig Henderson there, Author and Editor of www.mynaramata.com. He will be selling his latest book Naramata Chronicles and you will also be able to enter a draw for a gift basket filled with wonderful gifts from our local Artisans and Artists. You only need to answer a trivia question related to the book to enter. This is a truly worthy cause, 25% of the proceeds of the book which is $20 go to the good work of the Naramata Community Fund. Good Luck!

GGE First Online Exhibition

This Bee Paperweight was recently selected to take part in The Guild of Glass Engravers first online exhibition. Check it out! www.gge.org.uk You will also see some beautiful works by my fellow engravers!

Farewell to Mr. R, (Jeff Redden) Naramata`s beloved Elementary School Principal is heading across the lake to Trout Creek School in Summerland. These wine glasses were custom ordered for him as a parting gift. They have 4 Naramata Scenes, Naramata Elementary School, Maypole dancers at Manitou Park, the Little Tunnel looking down on Naramata and a Vineyard/Orchard scene typical of our beautiful surroundings. The scenes fit into the top part of the R on each glass. I love to engrave these special gifts as they are so meaningful to the person who receives them as well as the people who give them. Cheers and all the best Mr. R.!

This is another little perfume bottle. It is faceted and has beautiful colors enveloping it when the light catches it. It is engraved with a lotus, coyfish and little dragonflys all around. The images reflect all around it. It was a craft faire item. I love little perfume bottles, they are very collectible and you can put whatever scent you like in them. I like to use essential oils mixed with a little distilled water for my scents.

This is a faceted paperweight I call "Wise Woman", it also multiplies the image and reflect and refracts the light beautifully. Paperweights are very collectible items as well and this was also a craft faire item. I sold almost all of my inventory and hope to have even more next year if all goes well.

Happy New Year!!! I hope everyone has a healthy, happy, prosperous and interesting New Year this 2012. This is a paperweight which I love because I love bees and what they do. They are so important in my big herb and vegetable gardens, without bees we wouldn`t live very long on this planet. I make a herbal healing skin salve which is a very powerful natural anti-inflammatory, antiseptic,anti-fungal and anti-bacterial. It immediately takes the anger, itch and swelling from wounds. It is for itches,scratches, bites and rashes, burns, cuts and bruising. The bees are important to all the herbs grown for the salve and also there is beeswax in it which contains propolis which is a natural antiseptic and is very healing in itself. I`ve been making this salve for over 20 years and all who use it always come for more. I make bigger and bigger batches every year. It is so rewarding to grow herbs myself and make this good for everything salve. It has helped many people with stubborn rashes and angry wounds and impossible bites and even eczema problems. It will take the anger right out of a wound and ease the pain and itch immediately whilst it safely heals. We must all stop using pesticides as they are killing these beautiful and very important creatures and ruining the very balance of nature.

This is a very delicate blown glass perfume bottle. I lightly engraved with a stone wheel a sprig of cherry blossoms onto it. The bottle itself is very beautiful so I kept the engraving very simple. It was a craft faire item also.

Grape Illusions is what I call these crystal candlesticks that I engraved for the craft fair, they sold quite fast. I only engraved one bunch of grapes on the bottom of each candlestick and the reflections repeated all over the candle sticks creating an illusion that the grapes were engraved all around them. It was a neat effect that I really loved. And so did my customer. The image would appear and disappear as you moved around the candlesticks. I did get a good idea of what people really liked at this years craft faire and I will engrave accordingly for the next one.

Annelise Simonsen is the artist who did the drawing for this custom glass panel. Her Mother Cindy Simonsen brought the outline of the turtles and coral to me to bring to life as an engraved glass panel. She felt the turtles represented her children moving away from home and moving forward in their lives. The turtles and background were brought to life using stone and diamond wheels and burrs. It gives the work a 3 dimensional look. The little fishes and bubbles were added to give the work some movement and bring it to life. Personally this panel also represented me moving forward with my engraving. At the time I received the commission I was very busy with a full time job and really didn`t think I would have the time. My engraving at the time was sitting on the back burner of my life. Cindy`s patience allowed me to finish it in my own time and it was very rewarding when it was finally done because she loved the final result. It then gave me the spark again to get back to my engraving even though I was busy with a full time job. I then moved forward to get my craft-membership at the Guild. This piece I have up on the guild site www.gge.org.uk (gallery of members) as my personal symbol of moving forward and is a very special one to me. I ran into Cindy at the recent craft fair and it reminded me to bring this up on the blog and talk about the special work that it is. Thank-you Annelise and Cindy for helping me to move forward in my engraving life. This is the reward of these special works. Out with the old.... I will be adding in the next while some of my older works and talk about them a little. I had an older website which was really a gallery of my older works. I started the blog so I could keep things current and work it myself. When someone else does a website for you it is not useful unless you can update it often, which wasn`t the case for me. It was a good one though, but just stayed dormant for too long. We must always move forward for success in our lives.

The Craft Faire was a wild success! Many people attended on a beautiful day! There was a great deal of interest in glass engraving, many people have never seen it in this part of the world. I believe my success was also due to the fact that I have had a lot of recent exposure on the www.mynaramata.com website which I advertise on. The Editor Craig O. Henderson has also written a fabulous new book on Naramata which has recently been published, called Naramata Chronicles. He wrote a 4 page feature on my work. If you`d like to know more about the book: www.NaramataBound.com

Craft Faire at the Naramata Heritage Inn on Dec. 4th. Its Santa`s workshop at my house this year getting ready for the faire. I am engraving small things, like this candleholder. It is an image of our little house in Naramata. Tree decorations, paperweights and suncatchers will also be available. See you there!

The Art of Survival

In these times of and economic recession people are being cautious about spending as am I and buying custom artwork is a luxury to say the least.

An opportunity came up this summer for me to work at our local Naramata retreat, Naramata Centre. It sits on 23 beautiful acres on the lake.

What a fabulous experience it was! So much so, that I am continuing on there next season and hopefully many more to come!

It is a perfect place for me to work as it slows down at this time of year and is closed for two months in December and January. This allows me to continue engraving glass in the off season. I would like to engrave some art pieces as opposed to custom work which I have been doing for a number of years. As I get older, it is time to express myself and bring it back to art rather than income. I believe art and music heal us in so many ways.

I have the next month to get ready for our local Christmas Craft Faire which will be held at the Naramata Heritage Inn on the lake here in Naramata also. It will be on December 4th, from 11:00 a.m until 5:00 p.m. I plan to have" little" simple things, tree decorations, paperweights, candleholders etc. I plan to put a Naramata spin on the subjects. I am so grateful that I get live in this community and work here also!

I`m not sure how much I will get done in a month, however, I will still be able to take a few custom orders to be ready before Christmas if I do run out of inventory.

I look forward to it and will have some fun and get into the Christmas spirit!!! See you at the faire!

Pendants

I have started to make optical glass pendandts for sale and custom ones as well. I wear one I made for myself and always get asked about it. Some of them are on cotton cord, or some in the form of a mala. Like this little buddha, has black wood beads, faceted smokey quartz, jasper, moonstone and little silver tibetan style beads. I love using stone, wood and glass and silver together. They get along very well visually and the way they feel to wear them. They make great little gifts or something for yourself. I want to make a few little owl ones that would make great graduation gifts. I love owls, they are comforting at night when they are hooting at each other in our big trees all around the house and studio. We live with a lot of beautiful wild creatures that bring inspiration every day around here.

Starting this Saturday the 4th of June I will be opening my studio every afternoon from 1-5. People are welcome to stop by, see what glass engraving is, maybe get a few gift ideas and just check out another cool little Naramata spot, on the creek. I have a few little things for sale, like the above pendants, a few paperweights and blanks that I can do something custom up for a special gift or personal item. See you Saturday!!

Paperweights

Paperweights make awesome little gifts, they can be useful and decorative too. Anywhere they catch the light they`ll force your eyes to dive in! You can add an image that is meaningful to the person you are giving it to. This was a birthday gift for my sister. She always has eagles in her almost everyday life. I would say its her totem bird. Mine is the raven. We all have animals or birds we notice more that others and have a wee connection with.

Paperweights are very collectable and look good with any image, flowers, pets all animals,fish, dragon-flys, dragons, just everything. A great way to give something beautiful even for those male animals in your life. Graduation is coming up and soon wedding season!

I thing spring has actually and finally arrived!

Fundraiser

Snowdrops, the first signs of spring and New Beginnings. This glass candleholder engraved with snowdrops, is an item I donated to a fundraiser that will help to bring a young girl to Naramata from the Phillippines.

Marina is 11 years old and her father recently succumbed to terminal cancer. Little Marina is being adoped by her cousin Yanti and her husband Brent, local Naramations. What a wonderful New Beginning for this young lady. A fresh start and an exciting new life.

The fundraiser is being held at the Naramata pub on Friday, Feb. 25th.

Spirit of the Rose

Spirit of theRose

This is a very lightly drill engraved candleholder. The roses are all around the glass and one has a face below it. The rose is like a hat on her head. I used stone wheels on this piece to achieve the effect.

A very cool thing happened, I was picked as one of my community`s most fascinating people of 2010. Earlier in the year the Editor of mynaramata.com, Craig Henderson interviewed me and wrote a fantastic article about my glass art and the Guild of Glass Engravers. It was so good and true I`m very glad attention is coming back to it.

Here is a link to the article I would love to share with you; www.mynaramata.com/show1446a/Most Fascinating People 2010 Soon the New Year will be upon us. The Year of the Rabbit.

Yule Tidings and Merry Christmas!!

My Nephew had his first child this year. This is his first Christmas and I made this tree decoration in his honor. He is always laughing and so sweet. This decoration pretty much sums up his little personality. We all love him dearly! Happy Christmas little Amaethin!!!

Sabbatical

I am taking a Sabbatical from commissioned work for the time being. This winter I plan to take my skill level up a few notches and create some gallery quality work. Time to go inward and let my creative subconscious do its thing. I feel it stirring and yearning to create art that comes from within..........

A Little Visitor

This is Phoebe, she is our little hubcapbird that nests here and has her little family. She knows us and lets us come right up to her and take pictures and say hello. She is a little Dipper, who spends most of her time in the creek and in the shrubs around the creek. We have a number of birds who come around on a regular basis and live close with us. I love it when I can get a picture and keep a record of them all, get to know them and their habits, as they do ours, I`m sure!

We`ve had another wonderful visitor , from Stourbridge, England, Yes!, a fellow glass engraver and Guild member. Amanda Lawrence. www.gge.org.uk She was in Canada to personally deliver a commission she did for Mission Hill Winery in Kelowna. Amanda and her husband, stopped by for a short but very sweet visit to our home and My Studio. It was so inspiring and very thrilling to at last talk to another engraver in the flesh. It is fantastic to belong to the Guild of Glass Engravers, which inspires, educates and connects us together. "Light" is truly a magical medium to work with, and I hope to share with as many as I can in this part of the World.

Happy Halloween!

This is a wine bottle engraved with the copy of my client`s family label. They are from Sulzburg Germany, the family label is "Ghost from Sulzburg". They will then fill the bottle and keep it in their wine cellar as a special bottle. A cool design, the white image of the ghost coming over the castle. It turned out quite nice, the ghost was really sparkling. The bottle was brought here from Germany, Engraved and brought back again. I`m half German, on my mothers side and actually lived overseas for all my teenage growing years. It was a most rewarding experience to travel the world at such a young age.

It was kind of neat to engrave something that came from Germany to go back there again.

Finally getting back in the creative saddle, I will be engraving things with the winter season in mind and stir up a few ideas that have been waiting patiently for my wrist to heal up. Happy Halloween Everyone!