#CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GUEST CRAFTER AND AUTHOR CHERYL HOLLON ON BEER BOTTLE CRAFTING

Cheryl Hollon now writes full time after leaving an engineering career designing and building military flight simulators in various countries around the world. Fulfilling the dream of a lifetime, she combines her love of writing with a passion for creating glass art. In the small glass studio behind the house, Cheryl and her husband George design, create, and produce fused glass, stained glass, and painted glass artworks. Learn more about Cheryl and her books at her website.

Making a Spoon Rest from a Beer Bottle

The cover art for Cracked to Death (Webb’s Glass Shop Mystery #3) is filled with wonderful items made from recycled bottles that have been fired in a kiln. After that they can be used to make cheese trays, clocks, wind chimes, or wall hangings. My favorite reuse trick with a beer bottle is to make a spoon rest (pictured above). I have several in the kitchen and they definitely help keep drips off the stove and countertops. The beer bottles are easily cleaned in the dishwasher, so I have several.

My husband, George and I have a glass studio in a freestanding cottage behind our house, and we enjoy making promotional gifts for my book tours. For this book, I will be giving away all sorts of bottles.

First, I have to say my favorite part of the process is selecting the beer bottles. I like to retain the design on the bottles so I only select the ones that have a screen-printed image. If they have paper labels, those have to be removed along with the glue. On my last forage to the specialty beer shop, I came home with these lovely bottles.

I think THE MUSE by Angry Orchard is my favorite so far. It’s a sparkling cider with an amazingly fresh and crisp flavor with a hint of apple that will make a perfect cheese tray. I’m also happy with the ROGUE Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout – absolutely delicious and a perfectly literary gift.

The preparation is fairly simple. We just rinse them off and place them in the kiln so that they don’t touch or roll over on each other. Here’s a kiln load ready to be fired overnight.

The most fun is opening the kiln the next morning and taking them out and washing them to reveal a bottle that has flattened out perfectly. For example, it didn’t break, roll, or burn away the lovely design.

I’m using these in auction baskets for the upcoming Bouchercon conference in New Orleans this September, along with SleuthFest in Florida, and definitely for Malice Domestic in the Spring. I’m thinking that I’ll need more beer.

Cracked to Death

When a treasure hunt leads to deadly plunder, it’s up to glass shop owner Savannah Webb and her trusty investigative posse to map out the true motives of a killer . . .

It's the dog days of summer in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Webb's Glass Shop proprietor Savannah Webb has an eco-friendly plan to help locals escape the heat—a recyclable bottle-crafting workshop taught by reticent store manager Amanda Blake. Turns out, the class is a bigger smash than expected, thanks in part to a pair of staggeringly old bottles brought in by snorkeler Martin Lane.

Linked to a storied pirate shipwreck, the relics definitely pique Savannah's interest. But intrigue turns to shock when Martin's lifeless body washes ashore the next morning, another glass artifact tucked in his dive bag. With cell phone records connecting Amanda to the drowning, Savannah must voyage through uncharted territory to exonerate her colleague and capture the twisted criminal behind Martin's death.

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--GLASS ART WITH GUEST AUTHOR MARY J. FORBES

Mary J. Forbes writes stories with an emotional depth that is reflected in each of her characters. Several of her Harlequin books were Waldenbooks bestsellers, and reached Nielsen’s BookScan and Amazon’s respective top 100 lists. Mary loves to garden, and the rain of the Pacific Northwest where she lives with her family is often portrayed in her stories. But once the clouds roll away, her heroes and heroines always find their rainbow waiting on the horizon. Learn more about Mary and her books at her website.

I’ve always loved dabbling in arts and crafts. I’ve gone through an oil and watercolor painting phase. Sketched with charcoal. Knitted afghan throws. Dipped into the realm of sewing and embroidering. And, lately, fallen in love with quilting.

But...

Finding the right craft for my heroine of Home Secrets wasn’t easy. Lily wanted her craft to be a home business that would emulate the ideology of her grandmother’s ideology: to live happy and simply.

After all, she was renting a cabin on a neglected fruit farm near her Granny’s hometown. And as a single mother, Lily wanted to see her daughter off to school each morning and be home when the bus dropped the girl at the farm’s gate.

Although she’d been a teacher in her married life, Lily had always wanted to create beauty in glass—an art form I, personally, had never tried. Yet, Lily would not be denied. She persisted, whispering in my ear. “Stained glass, broken glass portraits...”

So, I drove to a quaint neighboring village where I knew merchants sold artsy creations and materials. And found a lovely little store tucked into an alleyway behind Main Street.

It harbored beauty in every shade and shape of glass. Large pieces, tiny bits, tall chunky spectacles, thin elegant splendors.

What caught my eye were two portraits. One was of a horse galloping across a meadow, the other of a cat curled up in a basket.

And suddenly I knew. This was Lily’s “Scene-In-Glass” business.

I asked the owners of the store, a husband-wife team, dozens of questions. At home, I researched hundreds of sites about the making of portraits in glass, and discovered a world of unique and intricate art.

I learned about pistol-grip glass cutters, breaking pliers, and tile rippers which broke large pieces of glass into attractive shards or the tiniest sliver. I read about using sponges and brushes to wipe away grout. And why to always use goggles and protective gloves when manipulating glass.

And so I had Lily set up shop in the empty garage on the farm. A born artist, she sketched outlines of pets from photos—taken by their owners—onto squares of wood. She’d select colored glass, break it into desired pieces, then glue the shards onto a wood panel to form a beautiful mosaic. From start to finish, the process could take days or weeks.

What I didn’t know when I began writing Home Secrets was that Lily’s “business” would pop up in certain scenes and simply make me smile.

Home Secrets

She believed in him when no one else did... 

A terrible divorce and car wreck scars Lily Wheaton inside and out. Desperate to reclaim normality, she flees to the quiet ambiance of her late grandmother's birthplace in Washington’s Cascade Mountains. There, Lily believes she has conquered her demons. That is, until her ex-husband demands sole custody of their child. Without funds to battle him in court, Lily will do anything to keep her daughter, even stand up for her landlord and neighbor, Grey Montgomery—a man her ex insists is a criminal. 

After serving time for a drunk-driving fatality sixteen years ago, Grey escaped the censure of Hawkes Landing. Now his mother is dying, and he returns to his childhood home where his sister remains as obstinate as ever, the lack of medical facilities could mark the downfall of his family, and people won’t let him forget the nightmare of his mistakes. Only Lily sees him for the man he is today. But as another tragedy strikes at the heart of Grey’s past, he and Lily must accept a dark truth about their families before discovering that some of life’s toughest choices involve the healing power of forgiveness, love, and the will to go on.

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