Lately I have been really fortunate to have commissions lined up. I like being busy so it’s a great feeling knowing that I will be steadily working on jobs at least through next spring. Because of that, I often can’t accommodate projects that have really tight timelines. There’s just one of me and custom work takes time! So when I got an email asking if I could make a stained glass family tree for a client’s mother’s birthday, I took a deep breath before reading the date he needed the piece to be finished. And I exhaled when I saw it was January! That seems like a really long time from now and don’t be fooled by the fact that I started working on the leaves already. I have a few days between the arrival of some necessary supplies for the current commission I am creating so I decided to be proactive and make these now. After I take them out of the kiln, they will be waiting in my studio for a few months until I am ready for them. The leaves are one of the last components of the family tree as they are where I paint the names of their family members. Then the leaves dangle from little rings that I solder along the branches of the stained glass tree. I will share some photos when I get started on the main part of the project, at which point the actual trees outside will have all dropped their leaves.