Thank You!

Firstly before everyone goes away and settles down for the Xmas holidays, a bit thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past year. It’s not been an easy year, but it’s been lovely to have ‘met’ (albeit virtually) so many great people in the glass and crafting worlds. Thank you to all who’ve taken trouble to comment on my blog, given inspiration and advice, and of course special thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to buy some of my glass creations! It is very appreciated, not just because it means I can buy more glass, but it means I must be doing something right for you to want my glassy bits!

It’s not going to be all rest for me over the next few weeks, I want to get into the workshop and try out some new ideas and continue to strive to improve some techniques over the coming year. If the snow thaws I might even battle into the shed and try and make some things I’ve promised for myself (I still have a half finished walking stick in there somewhere!)

Thank you, and have a merry Xmas, and a great New Year!

Glenn :-)

Quick update and Spoonerisms

Thank you to everyone that replied to my blog, it has been very helpful, and if anyone else would like to add I am still very interested to hear what you have to say!

Been a little more than hectic this week, not helped by spending most of it on trains going nowhere. I posted some weeks ago my idea to give those of us who still have to commute (working on stopping doing that) a little something back. I sent it to the train company, who then two days later promptly decided they weren’t squeezing enough money out of their franchise so reverted it back to ‘public ownership’ which seems to mean no ones in charge. Having said that I quite like the new bizarre mix of 1970’s and 2006 carriages linked together, the old ones are way more comfortable too! However it's lucky dip as to if they are running on time or hugely late though.

Back on the creative front the other week I popped into the Folksy Xmas do-thingie to hear what Folksy had planned for the site and to meet a few fellow sellers. One of the lovely people I met there before I had to rush off was Claire McNeil who runs an Etsy and Folksy shop called Spoonerisms http://www.etsy.com/shop/spoonerisms

Claire hunt out old unloved spoons and turns them into Jewellery, on the night she was wearing a lovely pendant made from the end of spoon which had stunning art-deco style pattern. I think it says a lot for craftsmen of old that these old spoons had such wonderful detail on them that can still be reworked and re-envisioned into something beautiful and desirable again.

One of the lovely things Claire has also done is create a series each with their own stories of past loves, broken friendships, and times past called ‘Broken Promises,’ each spoon having a personal memento embedded in resin in a spoon. The stories are very personal indeed, my favourite is an earring given to her by a chap she met in a bar, clicked with, exchanged numbers, but never saw again. It has the romantic title of ‘the one that got away.’ There are so many lovely ones it was tough to pick a picture, and some with such heartrending stories, even an old engagement ring that never turned in to marriage. Gulp! I do promise that not all the stories are quite so sad though!

I’d love your shopping feedback!

Flower Disc
Originally uploaded by steampunkglass

I really would love to get some feedback from you all, especially all you lovely people who have supported me by buying at some of the sites I list on.

At the moment I seem to have bits of stuff all over the web, which is a bit messy and I suspect very inconvenient for you, the buyer. Some of you have been really lovely, stalking around the various sites and setting up accounts to be able to go in to buy my glasswares; thank you for going to the trouble!

I’d like to make thing easier and better, and maybe try and concentrate on fewer, and better, places to list my items. At the moment I have stuff on Etsy, which is a very good site but all in dollars. I have a lot of stuff in Folksy, plus a sprinkling of supplies in Misi and other bits at Coriandr!!! And then of course there is also Artfire which I hear good things about but am not listing in (yet!?)

On top of that I have an option to have a shopping cart on my website instead, which I turned off as I had so many other sites with listings in already.

Help! I am not sure which is better, so I’d really love to hear YOUR feedback as to which venue, as shoppers, you’d prefer to use, and also which you hate to help me decide what would be the best to concentrate on. I don’t mind if you want to leave a comment on my blog, on my Facebook page, on twitter or even email, I’d just really appreciate hearing what you think as shoppers.

Thank you in advance!!! Glenn :-)