Over the past 30 years, I have made a career for myself in sales. I have experience in retail sales, wholesalers, business-to-business sales, cold-calling, and managing sales people working with me. Sales, as a career choice, involves achieving success and learning to deal with disappointment. Hearing the word "No," has always determined me to work harder and figure out where things failed and use those failures to work smarter next time.

About 10 years ago, I found a pottery-painting studio and befriended the owner. I was there all the time, and I enjoyed having my new friend teach me different techniques of painting and decorating my project. Around the 8th year or so, she showed me a project that she had done in which she incorporated glass into her pottery before she fired it in her kiln. I found it to be super interesting! She had gotten so busy and her business was flourishing, therefore, we never found the time for her to show me this newest technique to design a new pottery piece. I was very curious about this "glass" that she had used and starting reading a little bit about "fused glass."

In 2011, I had decided that I would sit down with my girlfriend and speak with her about the possibility of me starting a glass business without stepping on any toes! If she had said that she would be offended that I would be a direct competitor with her, I would have not made the investment to start my endeavor. Instead, she helped me shop for a kiln and gave me glass and supplier information and hints about how glass reacts in a kiln and other resources I should use. She is a wealth of information and I am forever grateful!

The largest investment I needed to make was in my kiln. After I purchased my kiln, I jumped right in and, pun intended, learned in trial-by-fire experiments one after another. There was absolutely no harm in what I was doing and, in fact, I learned by all of my successes and failures how my particular projects reacted to heat and time in the kiln. I started out with flattening used glass bottles. Quickly, I found that there were a lot of laws of physics involved here. I took some classes and changed my techniques and began enjoying my new hobby much more. This experimental phase took me up to 2013.

In 2013, I began making projects using virgin glass. This glass is made in a controlled environment in which all glass, no matter what color, texture, thickness, etc. was able to be fused, or joined, together without the glass cracking. This added a whole new dimension to my hobby. I took a rather intense, 3-day class in Michigan in which I learned all of the things I had done wrong and how to do some things much better. The class allowed me to come back and utilize new ideas to create thousands of projects that are much different than recycling/upcycling glass bottles and jars.

I started my business, Relaxed Glass, in 2013. My daughter, Rachel, utilized her talent in helping me design my company logo. Finally, we published our new business on the web.

Today, we are on Etsy.com and Facebook. While all of our items are not yet on Etsy.com, I work constantly to continue to advertise and promote Relaxed Glass. We now offer painted projects also that are produced using a piece of glass, whether it's a bottle, plate, jar, etc. These items are painted with a special paint made out of crushed glass and when heated in the kiln, everything joins together and can turn out amazingly beautiful and unique pieces of usable art. My hobby has become a small business and each piece is made with the talent that I am blessed with and the love that I have for this art!

UPDATED 3-31-15: Recently, I have been told that my items are simply pre-cut pieces of glass that I "melt" together in a kiln. I can assure that EVERY single piece of glass for any of my projects (excluding bottles), is hand-cut - many pieces must be custom-fit together to make an eye, ears, mouth, arms, feet, antlers, etc. If I were simply melting pre-cut pieces of glass, it wouldn't take 5-7 days to complete one item.