In The Studio - Finding Inspiration in Experimentation and Making Mistakes

I have an Inspiration Board in my studio that most often looks just like I imagine the inside of the artsy side of my brain - choatic, colourful and fun.



To tack up all my little snipets of inspiration, I have taken to using discarded pieces of glass which I turn into magnets. These pieces are often the ones which never made it into production becasue they didn't turn out how I expected, or have tiny flaws that just don't pass my quality standards.



It's funny, but for little misteps and mistakes, I find it interesting that they seem to be the pieces everyone gravitates toward when they visit. I've come to realize that they each have little stories of their own to tell. Like the time I learned that trying to get a little more kiln time and speeding up some firing cycles means that you can essentially throw away $50 in glass (patience, patience) or the time I realized that pink flowers on a cobalt background makes lovely peonies look like dread grey, lifelless ghost plants (not the cheerful spring look I was going for).

I have tried selling magents from time to time and it never seems to work out the way I planned, but for now I realize that these little pieces of failled experiments help me connect to people who take an interest in my work. I often send them away with friends and customers, and it's nice to know that they want to share part of my process and love that buying from me means buying from a real person who experiments and sometimes fails.

In The Studio Today

I'm back in my studio today making merry and getting back to what I love - making tiny pieces of glass with colourful-goodness.

I have been attempting to make my work life a little more focused in order to get more out of my very limited work-time buget. In order to make sure I get the most out of my studio time, I have been religious about planning my work, sourcing all my materials ahead of time and DOCUMENTING everything.

I thought I might share a little bit of my process lately, some inside the scenes pics of my notebooks.



I have been using penceil and paper sketches mostly to plan out my layout an get a basic colour story going before I cut glass. It doesn't always stay true to the story when I start working with the glass, but I find it best to have a solid starting point to avoid total disasters.



Here, I keep fighting with finding the "right" green (which always seems to be a difficult colour for me) I'm still tweaking it.



A successful colour test. Although the colours between the paper and glass don't always translate, sometimes the final result is fairly close to the original idea.

I promise I'll be back to this space soon to update you on my progress. For now, it's back to the studio for me:)

Big Black Firday SALE (But it starts Thursday!)

I haven't been in this space for a while, but I'm back to announce a huge sale in my shop that begins Thursday November 25th (12am).

Stop by Penny Glass Girl to receive 15% off on top of FREE SHIPPING until Dec. 1st. To my blog, facebook and twitter friends, I would like to offer an additional 10% off (for a total of 25% off plus free shipping!) Just enter the coupon code "friend" when checking out.

To "like" me on facebook and receive more frequent updates, click here

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

Beach Days

All too soon, our summer at the beach will come to an end and next week we will be back in the city for another year. I will miss my lazy days on the beach, but will be taking so many fun memories home with us to keep us going until next year. These pics are just a few, taken during our last few beach days.

Wordless Wednesday

A Nothing Kind Of Day

Today is a nothing kind of day. Nothing we have to do, no goals we have to accomplish and nowhere we have to go. I love these kinds of days as they happen so rarely in our crazy, whirlwind of playdates, camps, field trips and outings with visitors, friends and family.

This morning, I asked my little guys what they wanted to do today and I was met with a skeptical, "why, what do we HAVE to do...." when I answered, "nothing really" their eyes lit up and and they eyed each other happily. So when I asked again what they wanted to do they said, "could we go for a little walk on the mountain, then have a picnic?". I love that they are still at that age when material things don't always jump to the forefront of their wish list, they could after all, have asked to go to the waterpark, or the toy store or even mini golf.

So today, if you need me, I won't be doing very much at all on this nothing kind of day and I wouldn't want to have it any other way.

P.S. and FYI The above photo was taken by me during a long walk on another Nothing Kind Of Day recently.

A New View

I'm a city girl. I like my corner cafe, close neighbours and long walks down my funky city streets, but having new avenues to walk out in the country for the summer is a welcome change.

I never realized how much colour I was missing out on during my daily strolls. The restorative powers of nature can be truly invigorating. Here are just a few pics I captured after a heavy rain this morning: