Makin Glass and Pottery

We are having a great time here at Makin Glass & Pottery, things are getting very busy, John Morton has rejoined us and he is working his tail off.  We also have over 20 homeschooled children and an addtional 20 people working on glass, now we just need to build the ceramics up to 20.

Palul (Paul Rideout) came to our studio and taught a beginners ceramic class, it was too much fun.

We are looking forward to having Gil Reynolds come and teach in April and Phil Teefy sometime later in the year.

So many things going on, I really need to get back to it. 

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I have decided that if a dog ages 7 years for every one year of human life, than a computer must age at least 15 years for every one year of human life.  This one is about to die.

We have some very good news, we have made it through the summer, thanks to all of the help from the community and our landlord.

We have four homeschools signed up and ready to start September 1st.

Corina is on her way from Washington State.

We are trying to do a Social Coupon to help bring people in and try glass.

We have opened up a space for artist to sell thier work.

We have alot of interest in our ceramics program.

I hope that I remembered everything! There are just so many wonderful things happening.

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Several of our artists asked that we make a space where they can display and sell thier art works so we have cleared a spot.  Artists will be able to rent a booth space for $30.00 per month plus a 20% commission fee, we will make another page on our web site with each of the artists information and hopefully a picture of some of thier works.  The space should be 1 foot by 4 feet and the artist will need to set up thier spaces and number thier items.  We are hoping for great success with this new adventure.

School has been out for almost a month, sure is quiet around here.  We have cleaned up, cleared out, and rearranged a few things.  We have had a garage sell, where we made $1,848.00, the landlord is going to help us through the summer, we are starting to recieve our school orders, and we went to another garage sell this weekend and found ware carts for the pottery room.  We have 3 new stained glass students and we continue to see interest grow in both the glass and pottery.

We have just completed 7 1/2 years, an amazing feat in any ecomony, thank you to everyone in the community that has helped us to stay open, God Bless you all. ( :

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We have been receiving all types of donations, I am surprised at the variety of items. 
We have a Clown Window Raffle.  A stepping Stone Silent Auction.  Items handmade just for this sale, and more stuff coming tomorrow.  I hope the fire chief does not pay us a visit this week, I could be in trouble!

We are very excited about this yard sale and hope to see you there.

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We are received two truck loads yesterday for our yard sale and another one today.  We have accumulated so many items that I am having trouble getting around to open the doors.  How cool is that?

We received a donation of $30.00 yesterday from J. Forbich, I was not expecting that type of support, it felt awesome.

We have recieved so many positive comments and energy that we are feeling like we are on top of the world.  It feels great.

We sold another 10 boxes of clay today, we are down to about one ton of clay, it is time to reorder.

We have 4 new people starting tonight, 3 for glass, 1 in pottery.

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We have recieved several donations for our yard sale.  So far we have;

two sewing machines

rotisserre

radial arm saw

gas kiln

bedding

yarn

tools

dog house

it is getting crowded with wonderful items,  I am so excited.

It has been a pretty quiet week here without the homeschool children.

We just sold $500.00 worth of glass!

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Oh yeah, my debit card was broken in half, which caused the payment to not be taken, which caused the web page to be turned off, which caused the blog to snag up somewhere.  Now we are back on track.

This week is Easter Holiday, now homeschool children, more open studio time.

We have recieved a gas kiln and a radial arm saw for our yard sale.  Bonnie is also picking up a few things later this week.

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Hello everyone, I am going to add items to our blog, I want them to all be positive, even if our real life does not seem so positive.  I will write all of the positive waves to the universe in a different font,  like this, see how it looks like waves.  Everything that is true will be in this font, so when you see positive comments and it is in this font you will know that it is true.  So lets practice, shall we.

The sun is shining and everyone is laughing today.  Totally true.

We just received two new students.   Not True, but very positive.

We have sent out all of our mailings.  Not True, but positive.

We completed our income taxes, we did not owe any money.   True True True.

See how that works.  If you have anything positive you would like to post, please feel free.  W

We are trying to Save Our Studio, any help is greatly appreciated.  Please keep sending out positive affirmations,

Makin Glass & Pottery always has what I need......

Makin Glass & Pottery is a fun and friendly place to be....

I feel that the prices at Makin Glass & Pottery are fair.....

any other postive statements are always welcomed.

We send out love, and recieve only love in return.  ( :

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Hello to all of my favorite people,

We have been teaching home schooled children for the past two years on stained glass and ceramics. It has been a lot of fun. We get to watch these young people grow and mature through their projects. Sometimes they are very quiet and they keep to themselves, but as time wears on, their personalities begin to emerge. It is such a wonderful feeling when a young person feels safe enough to open up.

Our adult students are also growing and expanding their knowledge. We had a very successful lightweight concrete sculpture class in January and we are looking forward to our next class in June. We have also had world class teachers coming in to teach, such as Corina Tettinger, Leah Fairbanks, Phil Teefy, Patty Gray, and Gil Reynolds. It is always an exciting time when we get to share our learning experiences with such wonderful and diverse people as these.

Like many others, Makin Glass & Pottery is having financial struggles, but unlike the others, we are close to being safe from closure. Unfortunately, close isn’t good enough. We are in a situation where we need $10,000.00 to clear up past debts and pay the rent through the summer vacation. We have worked very hard to pay all of our debt down, we’ve set up payments and slimmed down every possible expense. However, we are running on bare minimums, which is apparent in our inventory. We have learned several hard lessons, but we have learned them well. We have a great hope for the future, if we can get there from here.

Many of our students and customers have asked if they can have a garage/rummage sale here to help raise money. We are looking for any items that you may like to donate. We will be having our Garage/Rummage Sale on Saturday, May 21, 2011, from 8am until 2pm. We will be able to pick up your items from April 11, 2011 to May 16, 2011. If you would like to participate please call Bonnie at 247-0485.

We will also be having inventory specials inside the store on this day. We hope that you will come out and visit with us, because as always, we are going to be having a great time!

I will try to keep the blog at

Thank you for this wonderful experience, the past 7 years have been a blast!!

?

Kimberly, Mary, Paul and Dylan

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We had a great time this past weekend at our Lightweight Concrete Class, I wish Mary S. was here, I know she would have loved this class.  All day everyone was laughing and giggling, I was kind of jealous.  We were pretty fortunate with the weather also, a little chilly on Saturday but it cleared up nicely for Sunday.

We have also been doing well with all of the Homeschooled Children, they are so much fun to work with.

We have also been fortunate to get an interview in the DATE magazine, it was done very well, makes everything sound so wonderful.

I have been enjoying the weather these past couple of weeks, the sun allows us to roll open the door and let in clean, fresh air, a real mood lifter.

We have hung the extruder on the wall and we have also received a slab roller, the pottery room is really starting to look like a studio now.

I am pretty disconnected with my thoughts right now, but I will try to keep up on this blog, it seems like I just run out of time. 

We have some new pictures in the gallery if you have time to check them out. ( :

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I woke up today and felt as though I had been kissed by the Angels.  The sunrise was coming through my bedroom window in bright colors, pinks, then orange, then bright golden colors.  It was so very awesome.  I feel wonderful today.  I wish I could bottle this feeling and release it onto myself whenever I am having a not so good day, although, all of the books that I am reading tell me that I have the ability to feel this wonderful anytime I desire, so I guess I just need to learn more.  When I took Paul to college today, his car is not running, the traffic was clear, Robert Red Ford was running like a champ and the sun was bright.  On the way to work I traveled I5, Robert Red Ford is not much of a runner, but today he was already to rock and roll, smooth as silk he ran.  We came across some fog, I love fog, so mysterious, cool, and wet.  There were trees hiding in and out of the fog, thier bare branches lifting the fog up to heaven, some of the fog was denser in places giving a real feeling of depth and movement, what a beautiful scene.  Sometimes I feel like I am missing the beauty that God has placed right in front of me, I pray that I will see it more clearly everyday, that I will have the ability to breathe in more of this intoxicating feeling of love and pure joy for many more years to come.  I am excited about heaven and the beauty it has to offer, I just want to be completly filled up before I go. No, I want to be overflowing, yes, overflowing with Gods grace and beauty, that sounds about right ( :

Have a day as beautiful as mine and all will be well in our world.

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We had a lot of fun with the kids this week.  They all seem to be growing up and maturing so fast this year.  It is fun to talk to them about teenager things and get thier perspectives on all kinds of different issues.  I truly believe that I have learned more from teenagers than adults.

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We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving, we sure did.  I stayed away from shopping malls, the internet, and rain.  We did go see Harry Potter and eat lots of turkey. Yum.

We are currently setting up Corina Tettingers next class, it looks like it will be the last weeks of September, I will let you all know as soon as we get the information.

I think that December seems to fly lby so much faster than any other month becuase of how it is broken up into so many litte sections, at least for me.  We have already made our fudge, yummy, twice.  Once we tried white chocolate fudge, it was good, but to much white chocolate for my tastes.

Our homeschool kids are getting ready for the semester to come to an end, a few will be leaving us and graduating, but we are still picking up students here and there.  We have filled up most of the class times.

We are going to start a guild for the stained glass students as well, instead of charging for a class fee students will pay a monthly fee.  This should work out to both our customers advantage as well as ours.  I am kind of scared, you know, another change, but I think it is the only way to go at this point, keeping track of everyones hours is just too much work.

I will try to keep updating this on a more regular basis, it is quite surprising how much time it actually takes.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone.

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We have gotten very busy here, today is our first day that we had to turn someone away becuase all of the tables and grinders were full.  It is nice to have so many people working with us here, but sad to send someone away.  We have filled up almost every work day, Friday afternoon seems to be the only time left open to stained glass artists.  We still have a lot of room for potters.

We will have a fusing class the first Saturday of December, already have 3 students, usually only have one.  Our lightweight concrete sculpture class is filling up also.  This is truly an exciting time for us here.

The rain today is loud and cold, I hope Paul has a fire going for me when I get home.

We will be closed for Thanksgiving, November 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29th.  I can hardly wait to celebrate with my family and friends.

We will be in the Art Hop sometime next year, we are gathering the information now.  We will let you know when you can see our work and where to go as the time draws closer.

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For someone that never goes anywhere, I am everywhere.

Sunday after we volunteered at the Senior Center mom and I went down to Pleasanton to pick up a bed from my Aunt and some glass from Alameda.  My mom really wanted the daybed that my Aunt had in her spare room,  we did manage to get the entire thing into moms car but that left our knees in our chins so we decided to get a U-Haul.  The owner at the U-Haul place was a real jerk, he acted like he was the only guy in town and we were in his way.  We probably should have left and went to the U-Haul in Livermore but we were feeling pressured by time.  We went to Alameda and picked up our glass first, we have several orders from different people. While we were picking out glass we just kept thinking "If we just had $10,000.00 we could go wild in this joint!"  I felt like I was being very conservative with our glass purchases, yet we still managed to spend $700.00.  It didn't seem like we got very much glass until we loaded it into moms car, than it seemed like alot until we unloaded it into the store, now it seems like nothing at all. very heavy sigh.  After we picked up the glass we went to get the U-Haul, I decided that 880 and a U-Haul were not really a good match, this also gives us a couple more hours before we have to turn it in.  While we were picking up glass we decided that we should tell the guy we need to go to Weaverville to drop the truck off since I have to deliver a ton of clay up to the high school in Weaverville, it cost the same amount of money but we got more miles and more days for the truck. Now that we have decided to go to Weaverville I am going to call Mr. Olson and see if he wants his ton and a half at the same time since the U-Haul can do three tons at one time, but now my problem is, how to get home from Weaverville?  I am sure we will figure this out before the end of the day.  Paul is going to come down to the store and help me load it, so those of you out there going "Oh, how is she going to load all of that clay?" my normal answer would be "One box at a time."  but this time Paul has offered to help me after school.  The boys did very well at taking care of themselves this weekend too. I think the cat might be hungry, but I fed her this morning.

I need to go load the kiln with more projects from Redding School of the Arts and put the glass away before the ladies get here.  Have a good day.

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