Quick Little Blog Note on Inventory

If you've been waiting for 1/8" diamond drill bits or Aanraku's great silver earring bails, they just came in our front door...

Christmas 2008 Fantasy In Glass Monthly Sale

Or as it's better known around here, it's "An opportunity to post another embarassing picture of Zenia time". Go here to see what's on sale for this month.

Andre's Somewhat Weekly Sale

Rapid Resizer computer program for resizing and printing out patterns. And a Canadian product too!
Only $22.22 from November 24 to December 1.

The Trials and Tribulations of Writing a Blog

You might think that I'm going to tell you how tough it is to come up with interesting and thought provoking stuff every couple of days.

Or how I try to let you all in on the inside workings of our industry from a retailer's perspective, while trying to be mindful of not annoying our suppliers, oops, I mean supplier.

Or how I'm able to take all these potshots at Gary Brown...

Not today.

Today, I'm lamenting the fact, that some days I'm so on my game, so witty and clever, so inspiring and thought provoking, yet once a new entry is written, these pearls get buried below newer entries and thus get lost and unread.

Have the time? Or the inclination? Consider digging a little deeper into Mikey's musings.

You'll read about his ground breaking study on how Neanderthal man may not have been so primitive, given the discovery of evidence he was involved in the craft of stained glass. Or how Stephane Dion was hired by FIG as it's night manager and finally gets to put his 'Green Shift' into place. You'll even learn about how our ever attentive staff meticulously run each and every sale square we receive through our own in-house electro-Figtrometer to detect and eliminate excess radiation and bad karma.

Or this...
Fantasy In Glass is offering the ConeArt BX117 fusing kiln (see here) at:

1) $798.88!
or
2) $898.88 and we'll throw in $200.00 of Bullseye fusible glass for free!

Given that competing kilns now go for over $1000.00, this is a pretty incredible deal.

To get this price, we need a deposit of 25% by November 30 for delivery in December.
This is the largest kiln available that is still capable of being powered by a regular household electrical outlet. It's Canadian made, and comes complete- kiln shelf, posts, kilnwash and Bartlett 3-button controller!

I don't Understand... Never Mind, I Actually Do...

According to our one and only Canadian stained glass supplier (OOCSGS)- due to the cost of importing from the U.S. they "must add a currency surcharge to our invoices, to partly offset increased cost due to the sharp rise in the U.S. dollar".

But wait a minute... there's alot of stuff that is made here in Canada (lead, solder, irons, clear glass, kilns, many chemicals, etc) and paid for in Canadian dollars -surely we aren't going to be charged the 14.9% U.S. dollar surcharge on these items? After all, it didn't happen in the past when we had a competitive wholesale market. Both suppliers were careful to strip out all non-U.S. goods before adding the surcharge.

Oops, we don't have the protection of competitive market anymore. And yes, we are expected to pay this U.S. dollar surcharge on everything- including Canadian goods also...

We've found another supplier for some of these Canadian supplies. To save 14.9%? Partially. To feel better about not allowing ourselves to be taken advantage of. Absolutely.

But for most of our competitors, there isn't another supplier.

Remember, this blog does accept comments, which we love to get (yes, even from Gary Brown).

And if you're scared, you can even do so anonymously.

Andre's Somewhat Weekly Sale

November 14 to 22
Mika's handy mosaic cutters/groziers- regularly- $32.99, on sale at $19.88!

RCMP To Shift Focus To Stained Glass and Mikey Puts Kilns on Sale To Celebrate

TORONTO, ON- After decades devoted to deciphering Russian military codes. working various covert operations around the globe, tasering Polish immigrants and covering it up and working on perfecting the Musical Ride, RCMP spokesman Gary Brownlee announced today that they will phase out all policing and national security operations to focus exclusively on the production of a new line of machine made artglass.

"Around the time we investigated the Somalia affair we began to have doubts about whether this is what we really wanted to do," Brownlee said. "After last month's top secret burial of nuclear waste in Lake Ontario, I just thought"You know what? There's more to life than this. That 'more' to us, is the spreading of happiness and joy through the promotion of stained glass. We've started an intensive program and have sent out our best agents to Fantasy In Glass to learn as much as they possibly can about this craft, and report back to us."

Mr. Brownlee has confirmed that production of their first colour will begin shortly after Christmas ("We're appearing in the Christmas Parade with our Musical Ride" reports Brownlee, with a maple read and white opal mix.

Such a memorable event cannot pass by without some sort of celebration-

Fantasy In Glass is offering the ConeArt BX117 fusing kiln (see here) at:

1) $798.88!

or

2) $898.88 and we'll throw in $200.00 of Bullseye fusible glass for free!

Given that competing kilns now go for over $1000.00, this is a pretty incredible deal.

One condition:

To get this price, we need a deposit of 25% by November 30 for delivery in December.

This is the largest kiln available that is still capable of being powered by a regular household electrical outlet. It's Canadian made, and comes complete- kiln shelf, posts, kilnwash and Bartlett 3-button controller!

Free Fusing Project Ideas and Patterns and Other Stuff

... or how Mikey enjoys alot of alliteration...There is always an abundance of patterns prevalent everywhere (even here) for those working in stained glass, but what about those who have just gotten interested in fusing and slumping? Well then look here...

Want to get into fusing, but don't know where to start? It's not really that hard and the best way to start is to come on down on Saturday November 8 when Louie runs our next one day fusing seminar (more details here).

Need a kiln, then you've got another reason to visit FIG- have our staff fill you in on our ConeArt kilns- they are the best deal anywhere, and with the rising U.S. dollar, these Canadian made kilns are now about 25% less than Evenheat, Hotfire and Skutt kilns. We even have our BX116 (see details here) on sale- buy it (complete with pyrometer, shelf, posts and kilnwash) for only $599.99 and Mikey will throw in $100.00 of fusible Bullseye glass with it for free!

More ConeartKilns Arrive Tomorow!

If you've been yearning for a kiln of a decent size for fusing and slumping, then this Canadian kiln manufacturer is the only choice- quality and price-wise. And that's even more so now as we expect to see American made kilns rise significantly in price given the current currency situation. 

We have a delivery arriving tomorrow with Bx116's and BX117's (see them here) at $599.99 and $899.99 (complete with shelves, etc). 

Just The Facts- You Decide

The cost of supplies to both you and us is continuing to rise at an ever-increasing rate. And, this rise seems to have little or no correlation to market realities. Is it actually a function of true costs increasing or is it something else? You decide.

The price of an item is a function of several things; namely, cost of goods, cost of transportation, value of the Canadian dollar (for non-Canadian goods), and the amount of markup expected by the supplier. We all know that the dollar's gone down recently, gas is up... oops, no it’s not- it’s now down- to the lowest level in two years. Some suppliers have raised their prices (some have, but we know who hasn't, given our close contact with American suppliers and wonder why products like window glass [which is bought locally] would suddenly go up 40%). But do all these factors justify the substantial price increases our industry in Canada has seen in the past year or so? You decide.

We've progressively pursued alternative sources for supplies over the past few years to the point where we now depend on our Canadian supplier for less than 25% of our inventory. Of course, as we are not as dependent upon our sole Canadian supplier as some of our competitors, the impact on pricing at Fantasy In Glass is not as extreme as you might experience elsewhere. And we have secured supplies and made other plans to continue to try and minimize the impact to you (maybe we should be working for the Canadian wholesaler- if we can do it, why can’t they?).

Where’s this all going?

In two separate letters received from our one and only Canadian supplier in recent weeks, they are instituting the following surcharge on all goods bought from them- namely, for every dollar spent with them, they will be adding a percentage to recoup their increased costs.

Surcharges are as follows:

Oct. 15- (dollar at .845 cents)- surcharge is 7.9%
Oct. 31- (dollar at .823)- surcharge is 14.2%

That means that a dollar difference of 2.7% warrants a surcharge increase of 6.3%.

Make sense? Justified? You decide.

It’s a strange and trying time to be a Canadian stained glass retailer…