The Delphi Blog

The Holiday Season offers the perfect opportunity to create custom glass art celebrating traditions. Unique decorations and dishware featuring iconic designs are sure to become favorite centerpieces of your holiday decorations. Hanukkah is no exception - the Festival of Lights immediately conjures up images of dreidels and Hanukkah menorahs. Find a fresh take on the menorah and design your own in fused glass following step-by-step instructions courtesy of Aanraku Glass Studios, or make festive gift tags, plates or candle ornaments for Hanukkah with Free Project Guides. Looking for more ideas to create glass art projects for Hanukkah? Browse glass art Judaica supplies.

Contest Details: Submit any animal themed project done in art glass, mosaics, or jewelry. This is an online contest open to everyone. All skill levels, from beginning crafters to studio artists, are encouraged to participate. Submission Period: October 16, 2012 - October 30, 2012 (11:59 pm EST) Voting Period: October 31, 2012 - November 14, 2012 (11:59 pm EST) Winner Announced: November 15, 2012 Prize: There will be one grand prize given based on the entry with the most votes. The winner will receive a Delphi Tote Bag filled with assorted animal pattern books, a golden honey stained wooden display box with a 6 inch square opening for your glass art, as well as other assorted goodies! Total retail value of over $85.00 . Get Started: Enter for your chance to win. Visit Delphi's online Artist Gallery to submit your artwork. Need some inspiration? See some of our favorite Pet Project Supplies. Contest Rules: Entry can be an original design or from a published book or pattern. All entries to the Animal Art Contest must be submitted electronically through the Artist Gallery. Entries accepted October 16-October 30, 2012. Entr

Congratulations to our two winners of the Fused Glass Frit Art Contest! These two winners received the most votes in the categories of 90 COEand 96 COE and will receive the following prizes: 90 COE Prize - 12 medium 5 oz jars of frit in various colors and transparencies and a Bullseye waist apron, a $100 Retail value.Donated by Bullseye Glass Co. 96 COE Prize- Frit Sampler mini kit and an Iridescent Variety Pack, a $100 Retail value. Donated by Uroboros Glass Studios, Inc. Check out a slideshow of the 100+ entries in this contest. Thank you to all who participated. 90 COEWinner Title: Winter Artist: Kelly Crosser 96 COEWinner Title: Mesa Artist: Shaboom Art Glass

Here at Delphi, we love a good reason to celebrate. With the Holiday Season still looming weeks away, we were feeling anxious for a bit of excitement now. The good news? There are lots of lesser known holidays scattered throughout the year if you only look for them. (September includes a favorite of ours; National Talk Like a Pirate Day.) We needed another zany mood boost to get us through Thats how we found this gem: Its National Pet Peeve Week! In honor of this holiday we thought long and hard about what really gets under our skin and pushes our buttons while working on projects. Check out our top glass art pet peeves, and the simple solutions sure to put a smile back on your face! Pet Peeve : Disappearing Marker Lines Solution: Mark Stay II saves the day! Just wipe a little over marker lines for stay-put patterns while grinding or using a saw. Pet Peeve: All Tangled Up Solution: A Foil Dispenser keeps rolls tidy and ready to use. No more fighting with unruly rolls!

Where do I sell my work and how do I get there? Isn't that the question that is at the top of all of our lists? As John and I have plowed through what seemed at times to be an unknown and vast dessert with too few or too many direction signs, we eventually learned what worked for us. We've spent time investigating shows, galleries, commissions, advertising, contests and classes. All of these have been fruitful in one way or another, but some worked better for us than others. There are three that have impacted our business the most, and I will share those first. Early in 2010, I was sent an email by Delphi concerning the Spring Art Glass Festival Contest. I remember saying to John, "Wouldn't it be great if they chose one of our pictures to put in their catalog? That would be great advertising for us, and it would be Free!" All I had to do was load up pictures on the site. Sounds easy, but when you are technologically handicapped, it is not so easy. So I began to work through the process, and the first hurdle that had to be conquered was to take decent photographs. I found a digital camera on sale, John built me a closet-sized photo booth out of PVC, and we went

Contest Details: Submit any project done in art glass using frit. This is an online contest open to everyone. All skill levels, from beginning crafters to studio artists, are encouraged to participate. Entry must indicate which COE was used to create the piece, 90 or 96. Submission Period: September 19, 2012 - October 7, 2012 (11:59 pm EST) Voting Period: October 8, 2012 - October 14, 2012 (11:59 pm EST) Winners Announced: October 15, 2012 Prizes: There will be two prizes given based on the entry with the most votes within each COE, 90 96 as follows: 90 COE Prize - 12 medium 5 oz jars of frit in various colors and transparencies and a Bullseye waist apron, a $100 Retail value.Donated by Bullseye Glass Co. 96 COE Prize- Frit Sampler mini kit and an Iridescent Variety Pack, a $100 Retail value.Donated by Uroboros Glass Studios, Inc. Get Started: Enter for your chance to win. Visit Delphi's online Artist Gallery to submit your artwork. Need some inspiration? See our expanded product line for both 90 COE and 96 COE . Contest Rules : Entry can be an original design or from a published book or pat

Raise your hands if you are totally psyched about what is happening in todays arts and crafts world! In true Arnold Horshack form OOOOOOHHHHH! OOOOOOHHHHH! OOOOOOHHHHH! What has gotten me so excited - the rise of Mixed Media Collage! I have a confession to make, even though I work mainly in the art glass world - I am so the closet Mixed Media Collage junkie ! No wonder, my love of combining tiny pieces of tesserae to create mosaics translates perfectly to combining layers of mixed media to create a similar effect. Mixed Media Collage brings so many techniques together to create wonderful masterpieces. Its all about the layering and composition. And it teaches us so much about what looks right and what doesnt. Now mind you, I said I was a junkie, not an expert! But I would like to share with you my addiction and the method to my madness or the madness to my method. To begin creating a collage you usually start with a sturdy backing, or substrate to create the foundation for your work. For a mixed media art collage, this may be a canvas, a piece of cardboard, a piece of wood, a page of an altered book or my favorite - a sheet of metal. Just mak

Check out these Project Ideas Now for some news from Stained Glass News SGN, in conjunction with Aanraku Glass Studios and Spectrum Glass, has announced details of their their 25th Anniversary Contest. Nine winners will be chosen to receive cash prizes as well as glass and supplies from Spectrum Glass Studios. To enter the contest make one of three new Aanraku projects using Spectrum Glass - either art glass or System96 - and send a photo of your work to Stained Glass News in Newaygo, MI. You can use any glass crafting technique and enter as many projects as you like. Buy your supplies from Delphi Glass or your favorite local glass retailer, then visit stainedglassnews.com/contest for complete rules and entry form. You have until December 31st to mail in your project. Winners will be announced in the March 2013 issue of Stained Glass News . Project Categories Cash and prizes will be awarded for first, second and third place in each of these three categories: 1.) Aanraku Square Wooden Box (9 or 7) 2.) Aanraku Set of Bookends 3.) Aanraku Tea Tray Server (you must use 2 tiers or more)

Whats behind Delphis new line of Premium Wrought Iron Stands ?An American manufacturing company, Professional Metal Works, Inc (PMW). We sit down with Jim Rice of PMW to ask him a few questions about the quality products his company produces. Delphi: How did your company get started? Jim Rice: Professional Metal Works, PMW for short, was established in 2000 by Fred Boling who had over 25 years in the metal fabrication industry.Shortly thereafter in 2001 Fred was joined by a partner, Jerry McKenna who had worked with Fred previously and himself had over 25 years of experience in metal fabrication as well. Delphi: What makes your company unique? Jim Rice: Both Fred and Jerry capitalized on their experiences and knowledge that their business can be very successful by providing customers what they need and want high quality precision metal fabrications delivered on time and at a fair price.At PMW we take our delivery commitments very seriously and are also extremely responsive to our customers to make sure that they are getting the quality in the parts that they need and expect. Delphi: Why is it important for companies like Delphi to buy produc

Think of it this way: you're attempting to capture something that doesn't actually exist. A mythical creature that can change shape, even meaning at any given time; and you're expected to do it, again and again, over and over, til the end of time. Sounds all kinds of easy, right? It's actually about as easy as it sounds. Creativity is the mythical creature, I'm the person that's supposed to capture it. That's my life as an artist. More specifically, a stained glass artist. My love of glass started at a very young age--the exact age doesn't matter--but I know I was short enough to be patted on the top of my curly head by hundreds of people while they called me small boy since I was too painfully shy to introduce myself. I was dragged through hundreds of cathedrals and museums here and abroad. I saw the works of the masters in every gallery but no Picasso or Giacometti or Degas ever related to me the way stained glass did. There was just something about the interaction of the windows with their environment and the way it played with light and its surroundings that made me fall in love. So, how does one capture creativity? Patience is a great starting point. Noticing eve

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." - Thomas A. Edison Along the way, I've had some wonderful artists and friends share tips on how to make our endeavor successful, and these that I've chosen to pass on below may be the ones that have made the most difference. 1. Pick a path and focus. There are so many wonderful avenues that can be explored with fused glass.... or other glass mediums.... that for many of us, it is difficult to choose and focus on one area. Of course it may be necessary to take several classes to learn a variety of techniques in the beginning. I loved jewelry, contemporary design w/stringer and sizzle sticks, pattern bars, rod making, etc., but sooner or later, it is wise to pare down the list and focus on work that when viewed by others has a theme. In time, you can create a body of work that will become your signature. Spend some time looking at art of all types. Think about what it is in those particular pieces that just speaks to you, and begin moving in that direction. Georgia O'Keefe, Monet, and Klimt are especially exciting to me visually. Bold, beautiful, bright colors are my f