The Studio at Rush Creek

Author Event - Roger Stelljes

2007-07-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

Roger Stelljes, author of "The St. Paul Conspiracy", gave a fascinating talk in our coffee bar area last Thursday. He answered questions about how to find an agent, how to self-publish your own book and the costs involved, and told many interesting anecdotes about writing his first book. He also told us what to expect in his second book!

We enjoyed our first author event so much, and got good enough attendance, that we will try to have an author event in the coffee bar every month. Our next author, on August 20, will be children's author Patrick Mader. See details on our August class schedule! If you have some favorite authors who live in the Twin Cities, let us know and we'll try to schedule them.

2007-07-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

We sure have been remiss this year in adding to our blog. We have already had another open house (in June) since our last blog entry. To the left is a photo from the latest FREE open house, where our customers made photo pendants, father's day "cloth tie" cards, metal handstamped pieces, beaded bracelets, fused glass necklaces, etc. KidzArt had their usual good projects for the younger set.

The big news of today is that The Studio made the front page of the Source section in the Star Tribune! If you haven't seen it, it may still be online at http://www.startribune.com/389/story/1288891.html. We had to laugh a little when we read it, because it didn't tell much about our business and what we really do. Like emphasizing our daily art classes and art parties. And we don't really have a graphic design service although we do very simple graphics projects. (Plus Natalie does website design.) BUT the reporter, Mary, who was super nice, was writing the article for the Family section and I think she just wanted to capture some family dynamics instead of focusing on the business aspects. Dave was the most quotable with his usual wry comments. We are thrilled to have the publicity.

More soon.

Pictures from Open House

2007-01-07T15:55:00.000-08:00

Saturday was our second-ever open house. We had free art projects for teens & adults, and our collaborator, KidzArt, had free art classes for kids. We're pretty sure at least a couple hundred people showed up during the 5 hours ... maybe more! We hope everyone had fun making the stained glass suncatchers, copper hammered earrings, wire wrapped silverware, digital refrigerator magnets, and embroidery greeting cards. People who liked working with stained glass or jewelry making should check out our stained glass panel classes or sterling jewelry classes this month!

Here are a few of the projects people made:

Here are a group of people starting their suncatchers...

and kids doing the KidzArt class:

If you missed this open house, we'll probably have another one in late spring or early summer.

Holiday Craft Fair a Success!

2006-12-05T07:47:00.000-08:00

Our Holiday Craft Fair
Saturday December 2nd Noon-8 p.m.

The Holiday Craft Fair was a great success! As you can see we unfortunately didn't get any pictures of the sale at it's busiest because, well, we were busy! But The Studio was warm and festive, the free coffee and cookies were flowing, the raffle winners were ecstatic, and we had a nice mix of crafters selling everything from beautiful multi-colored ornament balls to letterpressed greetings cards to natural lamps (you have to see them for yourself at www.naturalamps.com, they're awesome!) to many different kinds of beaded, wired and fused jewelry and more. It was a fun day for all involved! Thanks to all of you who attended, we hope you had as great a time as we did!
P.S. Keep your eyes and ears open for the news about the next craft fair. We had several requests to host another in spring/summer!

2006-11-28T06:04:00.000-08:00

Don't miss our great new class, Primitive Rug Hooking, this Thursday December 30th from 6:00-8:30 p.m.!!! In this beginner's class instructor Janet Venne will teach you the lost art of hooking fabric to create beautiful textile designs. These unique pieces can be used to beautify your home in any number of ways including wall hangings, seat covers, coasters, table toppers/trivets and more! You will be making a set of four mug warmers/coasters in class and receiving a kit including hook that you keep (hooking hoops will be provided for class and can be purchased separately from instructor). Call today to sign-up! 763-315-3001.

Holiday Glass

2006-11-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

Check out these great plates done by a mother and son last weekend!

Make plates like these in our Glass Slumping class on Wednesday November 22nd from 7-9 p.m.!

Birthday Beading

2006-11-13T18:41:00.000-08:00

Another busy Sunday! We had a birthday party of 10 ten and eleven year old girls who made beaded bracelets and earrings with the help of our instructor Shannon. They had a lot of fun and then had their cake and ate it too!

These ladies just couldn't decide which awesome glass fusing project they wanted to do next!

We also had two mother daughter teams in making batiked gourds, a stained glass suncatcher, a glass fused plate and a digital picture pillow all in one night! Here are the girls doin' their thing, what talented gals!

All in all, another fabulous and fun Sunday here at The Studio!

Roxie's platter

2006-10-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

Roxie came to pick up her "masterpiece" platter tonight, and we thought we had better take a photo before it left The Studio permanently. Normally she is a watercolorist in our Tuesday watercolor classes. She applied watercolor principles to glass fusing, creating many layers and blending colors. As you can see here, it's a technique with a beautiful outcome!
Also, new to The Studio Class Schedule this month is a wonderful craft called Primitive Rug Hooking, in which strips of colored fabric are hooked into wool or linen material to make many different things including rugs, placemats, coasters, wall hangings and more! In our beginner class on Thursday November 30th from 6-8:30 p.m., instructor Janet Venne will be teaching you how to make a set of 4 cool coasters with her own hand-drawn designs.

Doll Making Class

2006-10-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

Thought you might like to see how the dolls in our 7-week polymer clay doll-making class are coming along! We didn't take a photo of each doll head, but here are a couple of them:

Jonny has managed a smiling expression on her doll, above (which is hard to do).

Molly, above, shows how she can get "a -head" in class.

Instructor Sarah Niemela observing Kristin's progress, above.

This is an interesting class to observe--almost like forensic science--as the students are asked to look in the little mirrors propped on the tables and try to replicate such small details as tear ducts on their doll heads. We are hopeful that instructor Sarah Niemela will be willing to teach a new session of this class after the holidays, so that we can offer it again.

2006-10-29T14:17:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday at the Studio and we're winding down from a busy weekend. We had two kiln fired glass classes Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Our kilns got a little backed up because both classes were full. The last of the jewelry projects went into the kiln today for fusing. Students can pick up flat projects (like jewelry) Monday night October 29. Slumped projects can be picked up Wednesday night November 1.

For anyone reading this who doesn't know what kiln fired glass looks like, here is a recent example of what a talented mother/daughter team made in our Studio and picked up last week. Quite a beautiful iris plate! They cut and placed the shapes, and then we fused together flat in our glass kiln (at 1500 degrees) until the glass melted together. Then, in a second firing, we slumped into a plate mold at around 1300 degrees.

Last night we hosted a birthday party at the Studio for some enthusiastic 10 and 11 year olds. The birthday girl's little sister also did a great job on her mosaic mirror, which surprised me because I always think of age 8 or 9 as the very minimum age for a glass project. Here are the girls with their fantastic mosaic mirrors! I had a fun time with this small group. It made me realize that, at least once a week, I need to participate in a class or party instead of just doing supplies ordering, paying bills, planning class schedules, and all the paperwork! --Karen

Glass Studio Night Tonight!

2006-10-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

Happy Wednesday! The Studio has been bustling with classes and events this week, and we've been seeing many more new faces at the coffeebar too for our delicious 'Winter Warmer' drinks as the weather outside gets chillier and chillier.
Tonight is Glass Studio Night from 6-10 p.m., so all you guys and gals that have taken a class or have outside experience in stained glass or glass fusing can come in tonight and receive free assistance from our glass instructor Colleen when you buy studio time! ($6/hour, half price after 2 hours) It's a great opportunity to further your skills and a lot of fun to meet new people (or reaquaint with old) who are here to do the same!
There are still spots available for our Basics of Copper Enameling class on Monday October 30th, where you get your choice of decorating either copper switchplates for your home or copper jewelry for yourself! To check out a few examples click on link Copper Enameled Switchplate. Sign-up today!

What's new at The Studio? (Above) Wire-wrapped dichroic glass jewelry (glass by Diane Swanson & wrapping by Deanna Burke) Take the class! Fused Glass: Jewelry or Ornaments Fall Leaves Glass Mosaic Mirror (by Studio employee Kelly Taras), Glass Fused Lattice Plates (by owners Karen and Dave Highness) Take the class! Glass Slumping , and a new adventure in the paper arts, Le Mini Book (by Studio employee Heather Feider) made with Chinese Bookbinding Technique and graphic by luxe paperie

All of these beautiful new items can be purchased at The Studio, get 'em while they're hot! Call for prices (763) 315- 3001. Hope to see you here soon!

2006-10-24T06:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Studio at Rush Creek blog! We are very excited to be able to share with you the day to day happenings here at The Studio. We will be using this blog to do all of the things that we can't do quickly on our website; post pictures of brand new studio projects, share stories and pictures of adventures in art and craft (i.e. what we've been tinkering and experimenting with), what's new and tasty in the coffeebar, new and exciting classes and upcoming events and so much more! With that said, let's get started!

Yesterday we held our first Artistic Handmade Books class, what fun! The above is a (slightly blurry) pic of the beautiful book made by Judy! Great work!