Stella Erwin's®

Stella Erwin's

"It Takes a Village"

Part I

There comes a time in life of any successful small business when it's no longer feasible for one person to do all the work. For me that time arrived well before the available funds needed to hire hourly help. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing some creative ways employed by StellaErwins.com as well as other Etsy sellers in "It Takes a Village" series.

Part 1 - What to do with so much glass to drill and only a 12 volt battery hand drill.

Stella Erwin's has two lines that require holes drilled in the glass - Porch Lights and Wynne Chimes (and no Wynne Chimes is not mispelled.)

The Porch Light are handled in house with a hand drill, but the Wynne Chimes glass is drilled by my good friend Jeff Wynne. The volume of glass needed for the chimes line is huge, limited only by the amount of glass that arrives broken or is broken in processing. After finding the cost of a drill press to be around $900 the search began for an alternative. Enter Jeff Wynne who already owns one!

Jeff Wynne - creator of Wynne Chimes

That's him busy drilling holes on the pieces of glass that are first tumbled back at Stella Erwin's. Upon completion of the first batch of 100 or so pieces, Jeff was paid with a covered bird feeder from Stella's inventory. Our current arrangement, which includes some additional work by Jeff on the chimes is 50/50 split upon sale. These chimes have very little cost involved but are labor intensive. With Jeff's help we are able to keep things sustainable at Stella Erwin's by using even the broken glass.

One of the newest in the Wynne Chimes line and just in time for fall. Beautiful amber and gold glass are featured in this piece. They are suspended by a vintage bedspring.

Links to the Wynne Chimes and Porch Light sections at StellaErwins.etsy.com follow.