Welcome

Welcome to my Blog. I am always trying to find new and unique ways to express myself through my glass. My work has evolved into my favorite item; pet cremation remembrance pendants. This is where I permanently fuse ashes between layers of glass. My most recent creation is my sepia - pictures in glass, where I take a picture and fuse it into glass. I have also done a few remembrance items with people's ashes which turned out amazing.

My glass can be purchased on either of my two websites
http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/addicted2glassfusion
and
http://www.etsy.com/shop/addicted2glassfusion

If you need something different, please contact me at
addicted2glassfusion@yahoo.com so we can discuss what you're looking for.

Enjoy my blog. Hopefully you'll find something that inspires you.


Some of my items at addicted2glassfusion.etsy.com

Monday, August 23, 2010

Pet Memorial Jewelry

I'm very excited to announce I have finally completed my first, fused glass, pet memory necklace.  Pet memory jewelry is where your beloved pet ashes are fused in between two pieces of glass forever.  You don't  have to tell anyone what's in the pendant unless you want to.  It's a really great idea and one that I've wanted to do for a long time.  It just wasn't cost effective to run my large kiln for one or two pendants because of the cost of the electricity.  When I learned how to create my fused glass watches, I had to purchase a small kiln where the shelf size is about 6 x 6" and it runs on a 110v outlet so the cost of running such a small kiln isn't too prohibitive.  I got my first order last week and wow, the pendant is so darling.  The one for the customer  has flowers, green grass, and blue sky.  The flower represents life and the memory of the living pet and the blue sky where I've sprinkled the ashes, represent the pet in heaven.  The pendant in person looks like there are clouds where the ashes are.  This is an amazing pendant.  I hope my customer loves it and what I tried to create for her. 

The other pendants were created at the same time using my own pet's ashes.  I love how the red, purple and blue one turned out because I can have any color I want, I could use red, pink, purple, blue, yellow, orange, green, white, black, brown. I have about 25 colors to choose from.  The other clear pendants have dichroic glass and some even have glass pieces that color the pendants.  I still have to decide how to finish them to hang as a pendant.  I may try to wire wrap them because I don't really like when the bail really stands out.  I'm okay if it shows a little, but not as much as these would show.  The two black pendants are created different; one you can see the ashes from the front and the other you cannot.  For the black pendant that you can't see the ashes from the front are where the ashes can only be seen from the back.  I need to try these types of pendants again and put more dichroic color on them.  They didn't turn out as vibrant as I'd like, but they're still really beautiful.

Here are my pendants for you to see.

Keep checking back and as I get more orders I'll post the finished pendants online.


I love how the middle and lower right pendant came out.  They are simple and the ashes aren't too overwhelming.  People won't know they have ashes in them unless you tell them.

For this pendant, the ashes are centered in the middle of the pendant and can be seen from the front.  I wasn't sure if I would like the pendant with the ashes in the front of the dark background, but it turned out really nice.

Friday, August 13, 2010

To Consign or Wholesale which is better for you?

A difficult dilema, I've recently had to ask myself, "Am I making enough money for the amount of time and energy I spend doing consignment or is wholesale more rewarding?"

Here's what I found out about Consignment shops:

I have found that depending on the consignment shop, they'll keep different percentages of the proceeds; 30%, 40% and even 50%.  You need to decide are they working to earn the amount of  commission they are getting?  Ask them questions, what are they going to do for you for their commission, because that's what consignment is, "a commission".  Do they let you keep your cards there to promote yourself?  Are they taking your items to any craft shows, farmers markets or other out of store venues, or does the item stay in their shop just for their walk in customers?  Do they have a website and will your items appear on their website to draw in customers?

Some will have you sign contracts and some won't.  If you're signing a contract with them, read it and if you don't like what it says, see if you can change the wording.  Make sure you discuss with them, what happens if an item is broken or stolen so you know?  Most of the time if you're selling items by consignment, you are the one taking the risk if it is broken or stolen.  If the item is damaged, you may need to fix it or it may be damaged so bad that you no longer can sell the item.  Sometimes your item is stolen and you're out the money, not the store owner.  Some shops will reduce the amount of your item over time (basically forcing you to put it on sale) to get the inventory to move more quickly through their shop.  If you are not okay with your item being reduced, make sure you come to an agreement.

With consignment, you usually have to wait to get a check either by mail or by dropping by the shop monthly.  Dropping by the shop is a great way to keep in contact with the store owner or manager to see what their needs are and show them any new product you're working on.  Depending on how far away the shop is, it can be difficult to get there and it takes time out of your day that you could be working on creating more products.  I did find going to the shop to be a way to build a relationship with my store owners, but I also found it to be a lot more work than I expected.  I was asked to change out my items more frequently than every two months.  This took a lot more time than I expected because I would have to go through all of my items, put new price tags on exchanged items and clean the sticky part off the backs of the items I removed from the shop.  I then had to update my invoices to reflect the new merchandise that was left in the shop. 

Make sure you and the store owner have an uderstanding about the pricing of your item.  Are they selling the item for the amount you are listing or are they raising the price so they get more money.  One very important thing I learned is, I listed an item for a certain amount and was being paid for what I asked for.  Later, because I was dropping off more inventory, I found they had increased the price of the item by so much that I now was only netting 30% of the profit and they were now netting 70% of the item.  They were not splitting the increase with me, they were keeping the additional proceeds for themselves.  At first I was extremely upset because I priced my items so low in hopes they would sell quickly and I would get more money.  The store owner explained that they have to pay their workers, pay credit card fees, power, etc and they need to make a certain amount of money per item to make it worth their while.  After they explained it to me, I understood their point, but this was something I hadn't expected, so be aware and ask questions to the store owners.

Consignment and wholesale are really very similar in the fact that it gets your product out there for others to see, and the shop will usually promote you as a local artist. I've found that people love to purchase from local artists. The best part about selling locally, you have a live person in the store trying to sell your item for you on a daily basis which gives you more time to create your art.


I think for now, I'll be focusing on wholesale and see how that works for me.  I won't have to wait for a check, I'll probably net the same amount of money and if items get broken or go missing from the shop, I no longer have to take the loss.  I may find that store owners aren't as willing to buy wholesale because of the economy, but in the end my time is really valuable and in the end I think I will appreciate selling wholesale more than consignment.

What do you think?  Have you had experiences with either or both?