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News

25 Jul

Posted at 07:11h in News by
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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

06 Apr

Posted at 05:53h in News by
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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."

 

01 Mar

Posted at 04:22h in News by
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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

18 Jan

Posted at 02:34h in News by
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This one will go down as the 'COME BACK' year... Like most businesses and cycles there are good times and, well, some not-so-good times. Over the last 18 years that we have been vendor members of Paii, we have seen some high highs and some lows... Ever since Jay Karen became president, things have slowly but steadily started to change. Change takes time, but in just a few short years with Jay focusing on the innkeeping industry and as president of Paii, amazing things have started happening, and the Charleston Innkeepers Conference is proof. We met more new customers, and wrote more orders for existing customers that we have in at least 6 years. "This is the best conference in a long time", Peter Deneen mentioned after the closing. Peter also said that "more innkeepers increased their orders for our handmade stoneware mugs, and that shows that Jay is doing a great job." We heard that the attendance was up by 20% over last year! Also the overall mood of all that we talked to was of positivity, filled with renewed hope, excitement for Paii, and the innkeeping industry as a whole. Deneen at the Innkeeper Conference