Lampworking started for me in 2000 as a hobby to share with my 12 year old daughter. My daughter was just starting Jr High school and spending less time at home. I thought a new hobby might be just the thing to reel her back in and get her to hang out at home a little more. My plan worked like a charm! She loved making beads with me. She said melting glass was just like toasting marsh mellows over a campfire. It is similar for sure! Soon she was inviting her friends over so we could all make beads together.

Back then, my girl just wanted to make little animal beads so, over time we developed several cute designs. We began selling our animal beads at our local Farmer’s Market in 2004 – expanding via Etsy in 2008.

Our interactions with customers spawn lots of design ideas. In fact, it was a customer who suggested that we make fairy garden accessories. At that time, I had never heard of fairy gardens – I actually had to do an internet search to learn about the hobby. Now, making fairy garden accessories is one of our obsessions. Many of our designs were derived from the animal beads we developed back in the beginning. Other design ideas come from brainstorming with customers, friends and family. Two heads (or more) are better than one!

We make our art by heating colored glass over a torch and then winding the molten glass into beads and other objects. All the designs are made with layering different colors and/or manipulating the glass with simple hand tools. We never use molds or presses - all our creations are free-handed in the torch.

In 2017 we started a product line of recycled glass jewelry made from trash glass we've found in our local rivers, lakes and streets. It started as a clean-up effort and has grown bigger than we could imagine after a magazine picked up and published our story. Please check out our recycled glass section of our Etsy shop.

Thank you for supporting this mother & daughter team's artwork! If you have any problems with your order, please contact me. I am pretty easy to work with and will do my best to help. Thanks! Kari