New Lamps for Christmas in the Berg at Drakies

Mosaic Lamps seem to be very popular at the moment so I thought I would quickly post some pics before they are gone again.  I didn't manage to take photos of the last lot.

New window @ Mount Edgecomb

Well what do you know?  Christmas is right around the corner and I haven't updated my blog for the longest time!. We have been sooooo busy with all sorts of different things and I haven't really been taking photies either so really and truly for a blogger I have been bad bad bad...............

Attached is a window that Wally has just finished for a home in Mount Edgecomb.  The home is still in the process of restoration and modification so the wood finish on the window has not been completed and the struts holding the frame in place are still visible. There is still a front door and staircase window to be done.
Hope you like it...

Note the wall effect with plaster...............ooooooh I love it !

Sunday Tribune Garden Show

Phew!  I haven't blogged for such a long time.  We have just unpacked and settled in after doing both the Hilton Arts Festival and the Sunday Tribune Garden Show.  Man that was hectic doing 2 shows in 2 weeks! But we survived and now the creative juices are kicking in again with so many compliments received and orders to make. Wally and I decided to take this last weekend off and spend it with friends and I am so glad we did that because the weather was great and it was good to just chillax for a change. This relaxing mode can't last too long though because Christmas is around the corner and we have much to do. I am attaching some pics of our stand at the Garden Show because I am so proud that we won the Bronze Medal along with Bobbi whose jewellery is amazing.  We were judged along with all the major retailers and so it is a very big deal for us to win something like this as we are just crafters and don't have enormous budgets to throw at advertising on a show! Enjoy your day!

Nikki's dishes

I was going to wait until after the market to see how they did but I am just far to excited to wait and really need to share them! Patience was never a virtue of mine.  Nikki came up to visit me for the weekend and got stuck into creating some dishes and I think maybe the bug has bitten.  I love them - well done Nikki!!!

Abstract flower shoe



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Launching the new oil burner

After having Sarah next to me at the ECR House & Garden Show, I can't wait to try out her fresh and tantalising oils in our new oil burners!  While we were at the show, everyone coming through the door wanted to know what smelled so good and it was the Apricot & Biscotti range from  http://www.thebodybarblog.blogspot.com/.

We think that the fresh aromatic smell deserves a beautiful container so we are launching these oil burners at the Hilton Festival on the 16,17,18th September! They come in 3 pieces and can be used in different ways.  For the oil burner, you put all 3 pieces together but if you run out of oil (hopefully not!) then it can be used as 2 pretty little candle holders.  Hope to see you at Hilton!

African Dream windows

Front Door with Acacia Tree, Aloe and hoopoe's

Phew! At last the windows have been installed in Pretoria.  I have been looking forward to this moment for quite a while now as we cut, ground and finished each piece of glass.  These are the windows that I was designing along with the owners in July and was excited about.  They are different and very difficult to photograph properly, especially the long staircase window as it is very tall and the sun streaming through plays havoc with the colours, but then again, that is what the magic of stained glass is all about. The colours change all the time as the sun moves through the sky and that is what captivates me and why I love it so much!  These are not the best of photos and the owners have promised to send me some which I am sure will be much better!

Botton half of staircase window

Entire staircase window

Top half of staircase window

Close-up of the highveld sunbird panel.

Mad Hatter Range and others

Wow!  What a weekend! My eldest daughter Nikki and family came through to spend the weekend with us and after looking at some patterns for dishes Nikki came up with an idea for a Mad Hatter range of dishes. Well this got us all fired up and we started getting the men involved with cutting and grinding and helping us achieve what we set out to do.  Here are a few photos of the results of all this creative energy which was surrounding me:

And then there was another bright idea for the continuation of the Bobbi range.

And then we also got in some new moulds to make some egg crazy goodies - 1 is a glass egg holder and the other dish is for devilled eggs.

Now for the next bunch of ideas..............................

Another lamp

Gosh it is so cold here today - definitely snowing on the Drakensberg mountains. I guess the warmest place for us to be right now is either in bed or in the studio where we have heaters and kilns going all the time.
We are gearing up for the Hilton craft market on the 16,17,18th September so I guess there will be quite a few lamps made before then.  I have finished quite a few mosaics but they are all waiting for grouting (horrible job - yuck) but will post pics when done. This is one of the lamps that I finished for a kiddies room.
The little fused birds are available at Caboodle if you would like to make your own.

Caboodle stock

How busy have we been? Jumped in the car on Monday night and drove through to Hillcrest to sleep over with Tarryn and family.  Then off to an early breakfast with Verena who has just got back from the UK (before the riots - thank goodness!) and then to Caboodle to restock some of the shelves.
 Some photos of the new stuff below.



Owl Lamp

Owl mosaic inserts



Bird dish

Another shoe dish with pearls this time.

Bird mosaic inserts

Parasol Dish

And the cupcake dish
There is so much more to see at Caboodle. Tarryn now making the most gorgeous lego T-shirt and we have lovely lovely woodwork stuff and dresses and and and..............

Kitchen photos

Whoo-hoo....... so chuffed! I have just received the photos from our customer with the kitchen cupboard doors and windows that we made. They had a kitchen makeover and the photos are on the stained glass windows page. We are busy with some exciting windows and door panels at the moment but will only be finished around the end of August. 
Bi now - gotta get to work....

Blog changes

I have been battling a bit with this blog to get it to be exactly the way I want it and I am still not there.  Having a slow internet connection at home doesn't help much either.  Anyway I have managed to add some pages and now maybe I can get it organised sometime. 
New on the blog at the moment are the mosaic inserts which I made this weekend and I have posted them under the fused glass section.  Also new are the windows which Wally has just installed in Toti as part of the kitchen makeover happening there.  We have also done the cupboard doors but they have not been mounted onto the cupboards yet so we could not take any photos.
Please bear with me as I try to get this blog into shape.  I still need to upload many many photos in all the different sections and will get "roundtoit" sometime.
Keep checking and you will see the progress :-)

Enjoy the week - I believe we are in for a cold snap again.

Jen

The Caboodle

At last I have some pictures of our little spot in Caboodle. We went down to Durban this weekend to take my grandson Tristan back to school after he spent some of his holiday with us and also to install some windows in Amanzimtoti.  This gave me a chance to get to Caboodle to see if everything was in order and I asked Tarryn to take some photos for me to post.  At the back of Earth Mother they have this delightful tea garden set in a very quaint setting and they serve vegetarian meals and also gluten-free products.  I had a really yummy breakfast there with my two girls while we put stickers onto packets and talked about all sort of stuff. The whole vibe at Earth Mother is lovely and I even bumped into customers that bought some of our glass at the House & Garden Show.  Altogether a lovely experience.