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Here is a story about a recent order that we completed about an amazing innkeeper named Kathy Hartley, and an annual retreat that she hosts at her inn. The three-day retreat is offered to those who are undergoing treatment for any type of cancer, not just breast...

Making handmade stoneware mugs by hand is just what we do. My family has been at this for almost 40 years, our anniversary is coming up in 2012, and each mug that we make has a story. Every custom stoneware mug that we create is done so for a customer, innkeepers for their  bed and breakfasts, banks, insulation companies, or even National Parks like Valley Forge. The style of the mug that we are focused on today is our latest and greatest called the patriot. This 12 oz. mug was designed by our potter Wade, who has been throwing pots here for coming up on 15 years. He is also fast becoming our glaze chemist, and we will have some new matte finishes very soon thanks to him. Anyway, back to the story, the Patriot mug! This mug was named on in honor of Independence Day with help from a close knit group of our fans on Facebook.

Two Patriot mug, one blue and one brown

Continuing on the topic of 'mug collecting' is at the center story of today's blog... This one is a good one about the custom handmade mugs that we proudly create!

Photo of multiple mugs from different places

Did you say all 50 states?!? "Yes - A round belly mug from each of the 50 states."

 

In the middle of our conference season, and coming off the Birkie (a 31 mile ski race from Cable to Hayward), I have found it difficult to remember to blog. If there is one thing that you are supposed to do with your blog - It is write often, put in pictures, and post them. So I'm going to keep this one really 'Short and Sweet'... The 'Short' part is about the Birkie - Annie and I participated in this Cross Country Ski event in 2009 and 2010 but with the birth of Eloise, Annie was sidelined this this year.

An exciting thing about the Birkie is that I contacted them in the summer and we were able to work with their staff in creating custom mugs  for their Trail Run event in the Fall, trophies for the age class categories for all the ski races, and a line of handmade mugs for retail! Here are just a couple of images of the mugs that we made. The artwork shows the 2 Norwegian warriors rescuing the infant Prince Haakon Haakonsson in 1205.

one red birkie mugs and one brown birkie mug

Although my time wasn't as good as last year, I enjoyed myself... The air temps was about -3ºF at the start and maybe about 4ºF when I finished... Luckily after the race was over I got to drive back to MN and see my beautiful baby girl and amazing wife...

Now we enter the 'sweet' part of the blog, more pictures of Eloise!

A good friend and photographer, Becca Sabot, came over to our house 2 weeks ago and shot some amazing images of our baby girl. We talked about a few ideas and then began moving furniture and staging things - Eloise was great but didn't exactly go along with our 'plans'... She must be taking after dad. For the shots that we wanted to do with her asleep she would wake up, and then when we tried to go along with her being awake, she would... Yep you guessed it, she fell asleep. At any rate here are some of the favorites!

Baby Elosie Deneen