NEW ITEMS
About ten days or so ago, we received 46 new styles of cobalt blue glass to add to our offerings. All of it is American handmade glass and it is gorgeous. I can’t wait for you to see it. The creamer shown at the left is just one of the many pieces that will soon be available.
You may recall that in another post I said receiving shipments was like Christmas. Let me amend that. The first five cases or so of a shipment are like Christmas. After that, it starts feeling a little more like work.
I personally inspect every piece of glass. With handmade glass, small variations and small bubbles are to be expected. Each piece is unique. But occasionally we receive a piece with more than a little bubble or a scratch or something that’s more than a small variation, and I refuse to accept those pieces. So basically, I’m making judgment calls on hundreds of pieces of cobalt glass.
Luckily, the craftsmen who made these items did an excellent job (it can take up to 11 different craftsmen to make one piece). There were relatively few problems and most of the problem pieces were highly debatable. But I had to look nonetheless.
(Well, okay, I admit I have to play with them a bit, too, holding them in the light, looking at the beautifully polished surfaces, checking out all of the detail.)
You may be wondering why you don’t see all of those new products on the website yet. The answer is simple: we take our own pictures of our products. Actually, my husband Andrew does that. And since I only get his photography services part-time, it is taking a while to work through them all. And of course, there’s a lot of programming involved on the website. I do that part.
I work on updating the site when he has new pictures ready and catch up on other things in between. One of the other things we’ve been doing is testing recipes. We make every recipe we post. My family loves that. Especially when we try cookies and then I say, “I want to try it again with a little salt in it.” “Yeah!” is always the response (or some variation on that).
PHOTOGRAPHS
I received an email asking how we make the white backgrounds for our pictures. The bright white backgrounds are actually pictures in which we digitally removed the background. We don’t enhance the products, by the way. They don’t need that.
The picture of the creamer at the top of the page is an example of a transparent background where we removed the background completely.
Often the deep cobalt color will cause a magenta or other colored shadow to form as the light passes through the glass objects. In that case, it is sometimes just easiest to remove the background altogether rather than have a distracting color in the picture.
To get the almost-white backgrounds, we use a homemade lightbox. I made it from a cardboard box, tissue paper, plastic lenses meant to cover a florescent light fixture, and shelf liner. I made it in one long evening.
The picture of the candlestick is an example of a picture with the background left unaltered. (It’s also one of the items that will be available soon.)
The lights on top of the light box are just small utility lights clamped onto the bottom of an old metal music stand! The side lights are desk lamps. Andrew uses a variety of small boxes to do some of the height adjustment on the camera.
It’s a pretty low-tech solution. But so far, we like the results. I hope you do, too.
SALE ITEMS
You may be wondering about the sale items. I moved a lot of items to the sale page and drastically cut their prices. In some cases, the items are hard to find and we only have one left. I cannot find a reliable source to continue carrying them. In some cases, I’ve decided not to carry items of that type, that is, items that are not made from glass. I had thought at one time that I might focus on the color cobalt, but I love the glass so much that I’m going to keep my focus on glass.
(Surprise! there will be a couple of red glass pieces and clear glass pieces in the new products. I really like them. It’s not the same level as my love of cobalt, but they are very, very nice.)
If you purchase more than $99 in sale items, I will actually be losing money since I cut the prices so much. That’s fine with me. Go for it. I look forward to the opportunity to show you our outstanding commitment to customer service. I don’t look at my business as a series of individual transactions but rather as building relationships with customers that will last for years to come.
One last thing - don’t forget that Mother’s Day is right around the corner. We would be glad to gift wrap your purchase for you and send it directly to mom with a special note from you for no additional charge. You know you’ve been drooling over the cobalt glassware. Mom will, too!
