Touchstones
• $100
• Choice of 2 colors
• Colorful piece of glass with ash inside, beautiful color arrangement of glass and ash mixed together. Smooth to the touch, great for the pocket and for your travels.

Paperweights
• 3 ½ inch : $200
• 4 ½ inch : $300
• Choice of up to 3 colors
• Colorful mixture of glass, mixed together with a very delicate touch. You can either have your ash behind the color, or surrounding the color in this application.

Pendants
• $130
• 2 colors
• Small colorful little teardrop in shape. Up to 2 colors mixed with ash in a beautiful arrangement.

Stuffed Floats
• $150
• Up to 3 colors
• Be displayed in an elegant beach scene with starfish, driftwood, shells, sand, and ash all mixed together.

Plates, Sideway Sitters, Vases, Bowls
• Custom pieces start at $350 and up depending on complexity of design and size.
• Choice of 3 to 4 colors
• Create your own custom piece with optics, waves, dots, or lines of color swirled together to make a one of a kind piece.

 

Package Deals

Package 1 : $650
• 1 Large Paperweight
• 2 Pendants
• 2 Touchstones
One color arrangement, choice of 3 colors. For extra color choices, there will be a $50 charge.

Package 2 : $1100
• 1 Large Paperweight
• 1 Small Paperweight
• 3 Pendants
• 3 Touchstones
One color arrangement, choice of 3 colors. For extra color choices, there will be a $100 charge.

Package 3 : $2200
• 2 Large Paperweights
• 2 Small Paperweights
• 6 Pendants
• 6 Touchstones
One color arrangement, choice of 3 colors. For extra color choices, there will be a $200 charge.
 

Shipping

Free Shipping
1. Prepaid box sent to you with glass vial, spoon to measure ash, and return box with prepaid label.
2. You send us back 1-3 ounces of ash back.
3. Turnaround time is 2-3 weeks. We will ship all product back to one address. If other addresses are needed, extra shipping will apply. Remaining ash will sent back with product.

Forms of payment: Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Gift Certificates.

Below is one of the articles written about our work:

Something to hold on to
- South Beach studio incorporates ‘cremains’ into custom-made art glass creations

[Posted March 5, 2009]

By Niki Price
Oregon Coast Today

     We know about “ashes to ashes.” But are we ready for ashes to vases? Ashes to decorative plates? Some bereaved seem to be, and they’ve created a new source of business for The Edge Art Gallery: memorial glass art pieces imbedded with cremated remains.
     In conjunction with Affordable Burial and Cremation, artists at this Newport-area hot shop have been consulting with families to design elegant, colorful sculptures or even functional objects, like vases or bowls. In the studio, The Edge owner Ryan Bledsoe and gallery manager Jeff Hajek work to fulfill the design, which incorporates the fine ashes of the family’s loved one. In the finished product, the remains are a visible element swirled between clear and colored glass.
     Bledsoe and Hajek have completed about a dozen of these projects in the past six months. They’ve navigated a variety of situations, including extended families, pet owners and individuals who are pre-arranging their own funerals.
     “I’ve been very humbled by the whole experience,” said Bledsoe. “We feel like we’ve been asked to do something important for people, and we’ve been able to meet a need. I’m helping someone to get closure which, as I know from my own experience, can be really hard to do.”
     The Edge Art Gallery is an unlikely funeral parlor. Located in the South Beach area, just south of Newport, it’s filled with colorful glass floats, bowls, vases, paperweights and other blown glass objects. Through the picture windows at the back, visitors can watch the “hot shop,” where artists blow and shape the super-heated silica. The Edge shares the building with Hummingbird Auto Glass, one of six windshield and auto glass repair shops owned by Bledsoe.
     Bledsoe has been blowing glass, as a hobby, for the last 11 years. When he moved the Hummingbird shop into its new quarters, in 2004, he decided to add his own private glassblowing studio. The following year, on the urging of his friends and fellow artists, he opened the adjoining gallery.
     Like other glass shops on the central coast, The Edge sells glass floats and offers visitors blow-your-own-float workshops. But Bledsoe quickly realized that it would be tough to make headway in that somewhat saturated market, and has been working to carve out his own niche.
     He’s made one-of-a-kind souvenirs and centerpieces for VIP programs at Chinook Winds Casino Resort, for example, and partnered with the Oregon Coast Aquarium to provide art glass environments for the current “Oddwater” exhibit. Bledsoe also developed a way to encase shells, agates, sand and other small items inside a 6-inch clear glass ball, which The Edge calls a “stuffed float.” Visitors can collect their own souvenirs on the beaches of Newport, and then enjoy them on their mantle forever.
     It was a stuffed float, and the memory of a beach-loving dog, that led to the memorial glass idea.
     “We have people coming in all the time, asking us what we can do with glass. One day, a man came in with the cremated remains of his dog and asked us if we could put them in a stuffed float,” Bledsoe said. “We said, ‘Why not?’ So we took the ‘cremains,’ mixed them with sand and put them in the float with things the dog liked to chew on and things his owner would throw to him. Now, that float sits on that man’s desk, and he plays with his dog every day.”
Bledsoe and Hajek had designed and blown custom urns in the past, for clients of Hector De Los Santos, owner of Affordable Burial and Cremation. What if, they wondered, the ashes could be incorporated into the glass itself? Using some of a dog’s ashes, donated by its owner, they began to experiment.
     “It was a gamble for us, because we didn’t know if (the ashes) were going to be compatible with the glass. But it was. It’s softer than our glass, but it doesn’t disintegrate,” Bledsoe said. “Glass derives from silica and sand, with certain chemicals added. When we combine it with this elemental ash, it’s like the periodic table in there. It’s all very natural.”
     The process can only accommodate a small fraction of a person’s remains, leaving the remainder to be housed in an urn or scattered in a special place. De Los Santos said his clients like to have a keepsake, especially when a loved one’s ashes are scattered in the ocean or are interred far away.
     “The (glass art memorial piece) is just one alternative, an option for folks who are wanting to hold on to a small part of their loved ones,” De Los Santos said. “And it’s a pretty piece of art that can be displayed in your home. It’s not obvious what it is, unless somebody tells you.”
     Clients have requested a variety of designs, from an elegant white vase in a crackled pattern to a small starfish paperweight in brilliant shades of green, the favorite color of the deceased. Some family members have taken part in the creation of the items, in the studio. Prices for the finished pieces have ranged from $250 to $1,000.
     At first, Bledsoe and Hajek were nervous about being trusted with such an important job. But they’ve found that working with these bereaved families has given them confidence.
     “It’s a very delicate situation and you don’t want to mess up. You’re totally on your game,” Bledsoe said. “But these people, and these experiences we’ve had with them, have pushed us to be more creative. We’re filling a need, and we’re getting so much gratification.”

     The Edge Art Gallery is located at 3916 S. Coast Hwy. (Hwy. 101), just outside of Newport. The gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For details, call 541-867-4198.

     Affordable Burial and Cremation has two locations, 6062 SE Hwy. 101 in Lincoln City, and 505 NE First St. in Newport. They can be reached at 541-265-7111.
 

http://www.oregoncoasttoday.com/glassmemorials.html