Wednesday 17 August 2016

LFCC, Birmingham, and Sunden changes of plan

Firstly a big thanks to everyone who came and saw us at London Film and Comic-con at Olympia. For those of you who keep up with my random Facebook postings you’ll know at one point it was touch and go if I’d make it at all! I’m so glad we did, the new layout made walking around a lot easier with wider aisles plus less stair climbing with almost everything on one floor. I’ve already booked for next year, so I’m hopping to make that a regular appearance from now one (fingers crossed!)

 Although this past month has taught me that all plans can suddenly change at the last minute. A combination of transport problems and ill family member two weeks before LFCC caused some very fast change of plans, plus a few sleepless nights trying to re-arrange everything I’d put into place months before. I do dedicate a lot of time and energy before these events to ensure I have everything I need as well as a good choice of some of my best glass for people to choose – but then I also expect last minute things to go wrong, and as much as I make contingency plans forgetting to pack things like enough business cards does still happen!

Recent events behind the scenes means that I am going to have to radically change a few things over the next few months, and regrettably November’s Birmingham MCM at NEC is going to have to be one of the events I am not going to be able to attend. It’s really a shame, as it is such a relaxed event, we meet such great people there, and as a bonus Birmingham has some of the best curry houses we get to visit too! At the moment we may also have to miss the March 2017 one too, but I’m hoping things get resolved before then so we can make our return then. Also I am only able to get to Covent Garden one day a week at the moment, on Tuesdays, and I am also hoping in the next few months that I will be able to get there for more days too. I do also hope to also increase the amount of glass in my Etsy shop too, which not prepping for Birmingham will allow me more time to concentrate on too.

One show that definitely we will be at is London’s MCM Expo at Excel on 28-30th October. Not only will we be back with as much as I can carry but we will be in exactly the same spot at May, with a ‘booth’ style stall too which makes it much easier to layout and display the glass for you to see. I’m already making new aliens for it, I’ll be extending the range of coloured inks for dip pens too which previewed at LFCC, including three new metallic colours. There will also be pendants, marbles, more rings and earrings, and if we have room some more boxes and ‘B-Movie’ cushions too. I do hope to see you there, so long as nothing else happens in the meantime!

All the best

Glenn

Tuesday 19 January 2016

New year, new glass

Happy New Year! It seems so long ago already, but maybe because I've been so busy melting glass it's taken me this long to share all the new news with you.

Firstly thank you to everyone who came and saw me, or bought on line, this Xmas. Its great to see so many people supporting handmade crafts, Covent Garden has such a buzz with people. Of course the next few months are a lot quieter, and much, much colder, so I won't be there every week from now until March. I'll be staying in front of the flame thrower to keep warm and make new glass for you, but do keep an eye on my Facebook page for when I'm next there.

Of course I have been refilling the Etsy shop over the last few weeks, the past few months have been amazing as I have now sold to 23 different countries directly from my Etsy shop since opening it! And what a range and diversity of countries; Argentina, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, Turkey, to name but a few, with about ten of those new countries added over the past few months alone.http://www.haxanshus.n.nu/


I'm delighted to also announce my glass has gone even more international with a shop in Sweden now stocking a small range of my potion bottles and teapot earrings at

The keen eyed (and Swedish speakers) will recognise that translates as 'Witches House' and by coincidence I have been working on a new range of blown glass, base around tiny caldrons. A few of these went into my Etsy shop today, I hope also to extend the range of colours and make some larger ones too, they are quite fun plus like my potion bottles the smaller ones can fit tiny corks to fill them.

I've also taken the chance to upgrade and tweak the design of my classic potion bottles, and add a little extra 'evil' to them. I'm now producing a few with a skull and crossbones design pressed into the hot glass. Unlike so many mass produced bottles this means it isn't just a bit of paper stuck on, with coloured dye or paint on the bottle, it won't wear off and adds a textured design to the bottles. A few of these are also going into my shop too.

I will also be endeavouring to make more marbles this year, last year I was plagued with shoulder injuries so haven't been able to make as many or any flower marbles due to the awkward angle I need to hold the glass at for these. That's on the mend, so I hope to get back to adding lots of new galaxy and space marbles soon, and already have put quite a selection of micromarbles for the Orion's Belt prop on line. However I may have to hold back on producing more earplugs, as I am still not happy with the way the designs are working, and need to do some serious tweaking to get a process I am happy with, so apologies to all those waiting for various sizes and designs, I'll re-launch those properly once I've got them right in a few months time.