Today’s featured shop is Glass Fairy.
I hand make lampworked glass floral beads and fused glass art in my studio located in Paradise, CA, which is nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Most people, including myself, use my beads as focal points when constructing beaded necklaces. I am inspired by the flower garden my husband planted for me which I can view from our house or my studio window. I enjoy making encased Pansy, Daffodil, Tiger Lily, and Rose beads because I get to use a variety of colors and I seem to get lost in the molten glass while creating these beautiful beads. Encasing my miniature works of art gives one the sense that they are looking into a tiny flower garden.
How did you get started making your art?
In February 1996, my husband and I were in Tucson, AZ, buying inventory for our bead shop (String Bead, which we recently sold) when we came across Arrow Springs’ booth, a company that sells glass bead making supplies. My husband picked up a catalog and surprised me by ordering the equipment. He read Cindy Jenkins book, How to Make Glass Beads and then taught us both how to do it. We spent months obsessing over this new art form and perfecting our techniques. In July 1997, we decided it would be fun to travel around the country selling our beads at various bead shows. Most of the shows we participated in, such as Bead and Button, Embellishment, The Best Bead Show, and The Bead Renaissance Show, were quite good to us and encouraged us to keep making more beads. In 2000 our first child was born and we no longer traveled to shows. Our bead production became very limited at this point and we only sold them in our bead shop and on the internet. I recently discovered glass fusing which I am learning with a friend. There is so much more to learn about glass than I ever imagined.
How did you name your shop?
I named my shop after a character in a story my grandmother wrote for my daughter called The Magic Land of “Who Knows”. The story is about fairies and what their jobs are. She mentions the tooth fairy, the snow fairies, the bath fairy and many others. In the story my daughter drops a glass water globe filled with fish and “The Glass Fairy” comes and fixes it for her. It turns out that I am the glass fairy in the story, so I thought that the name would work well for my shop.
The Glass Fairy’s work is available for sale on Etsy at http://glassfairy.etsy.com and at Mana Beads in Nevada City, CA.
micheledodge
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Beautiful beads. Thanks for sharing:)
Wonderful interview, Your floral beads are stunning .
great interview! Lovely beads and I love the origin of your name! 🙂
Hooray for Glass Fairy! She makes such beautiful little creations!
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